#Auguste is somewhere out there smiling from the sky :") | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sailoryooons · 9 months

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alright fuck it somebody's gotta ask for some fluff around here. i want in the soop vibes !!! but it's just you and yoongi settling into the place you've rented for a weekend away bc you're forcing him to take a break. you share expensive whiskey and he cooks for you and it's domestic and CUTE (and like it could get smutty if you waaaaant idk idk). ok love you you're doing amazing sweetie !!!

❀ Pairing: Yoongi x f. reader

❀ Summary: A cozy trip to the woods is exactly what you and Yoongi need to manage your stress. You especially love the moments when Yoongi gets to enjoy you right by the fireside.

❀ Word Count: 2,352

❀ Genre: Fluff, established relationship, smut

❀ Rating: 18+ Minors are strictly prohibited from engaging and reading this content. It contains explicit content and any minors discovered reading or engaging with this work will be blocked immediately.

❀ Warnings: Teeth-rotting fluff, Yoongi and reader are really touching but in a cutesy way, recreational drinking but no one gets drunk, explicit language, explicit sexual content including nipple play, vaginal fingering, a little bit of overstimualtion, light teasing, and a lot of WAP.

❀ Published: August 1, 2023

❀ A/N: It’s cool it only took me an entire year to finish this request for the literal love of my entire life. And the best part? They’re now back to read it! Thank you for being my best friend and my light in the dark and the moon to my stars and also for picking oral or fingies even though I don’t know if you knew what you were picking them for skdjgndfigdh te quireo mas, mi vida.

❀ Disclaimer: All members of BTS are faces and name claims for this story. This is entirely a work of fiction and by no means is meant to be a projection, judgment or representation of real-life people. Any scenarios or representations of the people and places mentioned in works are not representative of real-life scenarios.

Yoongi squeezes the back of your neck gently, making you look up from your book poised in your lap. Smoke from the grill catches on the wind and blows south, carrying the smell of sizzling meat. Yoongi doesn’t look at you, flipping pork belly with one hand while keeping his other hand on you.

“Will be ready in five,” he informs you, eyes inspecting the grilling vegetables on the top layer of the grill. “Better finish your chapter.”

You smile at that, pleased that he knows that you won’t want to get up from the chair you’ve drawn across the porch to sit next to him until you finish your chapter. Nodding, you dive back into your book, determined to finish before Yoongi’s done grilling.

It’s hard to concentrate, though. Dinner smells amazing, the smoky scent of meal and glazed veggies filling the porch. The weight and warmth of Yoongi’s hands as he kneads the muscles of your neck is comforting, Yoongi determined to keep his hold on you despite cooking.

Moments like this are few and far in between. Instead of reading, you take a second to soak it all in. Around your rented cabin is a stretch of evergreens and mountains, the blue sky turning liquid gold as the sun sets somewhere beyond the peak of the mountains.

Evening blankets the woods around you, urging the crickets to start up their nightly hymns and birds to flit from tree to tree as they head to their nests for the night. It’s not quite autumn yet, but there’s a chill in the air at this elevation, chased away by Yoongi’s closeness and the smoking grill.

“Come on,” he urges gently, giving you one more squeeze. “Ready.”

“I didn’t finish my chapter.”

“With all that staring into the trees, I’m not surprised. You looking for bears out there?”

“I was living in the moment. Plus, maybe a werewolf will appear.”

“Hmm. Come live in the moment with this pork before you turn into a werewolf from hunger.”

Dinner is spread out on a picnic bench table, platters of meat and vegetable skewers and steaming sides. Yoongi slides on the bench next to you, bumping your shoulder. He leans and gives you a gentle kiss on your head before turning to the food, reaching for skewers.

You flush with warmth, smiling over at him. Having him to yourself like this is wonderful. He’s warm and calm, smelling like cedar and smoke. Leaning into him a bit, you load your plate, both of you eating in silence as you watch the sky shift through layers of gold to pink and purple.

String lights on timers buzz above you, lighting the porch in warm, gold light. The air is chilly by the time you finish your meal, full and satiated. Together, you pick up what’s left and head inside, a shiver crawling up your spin from the breeze.

“I’ll start a fire,” Yoongi murmurs, smacking your ass as you head to the kitchen full of plates. You squeal and he laughs, deep and throaty.

When you’re done with the dishes, you pour two glasses of whisky. You stop just behind the couch, watching him as he stretches to spread out the corner of a blanket. There are piles of pillows surrounding him and extra blankets, a nest of his own creation in front of a warm, crackling fire.

Yoongi looks cozy. His nose is a little red from being outside and his long hair is tucked under a beanie. He’s shed the flannel he had on earlier, now in just sweatpants and a t-shirt that stretches across his shoulders. You don’t remember when he got so broad, but your stomach does a flip as you watch him, taking in all the things you’ve missed in the last few, very stressful months.

Sensing your stare, Yoongi looks up at you. His face brightens immediately, a small smile appearing on his face. “Hi.”

“You look cozy,” you tease.

“Missing the main ingredient.” He sits down and pats the space in between his legs. “Come on.”

Giddy, you hurry over to Yoongi, who takes the glasses from your hand and sets them to the side. Yoongi leans back against the rows of pillows he’s wedged up in front of the couch, legs spread for you. You sit down gently between them, your legs kicked out in front of you as you lean back into Yoongi’s warmth.

Cedar and smoke wrap around you. You can feel Yoongi’s heart beating through your back as you melt into him, sighing. He brings his arms around you, lifting one of the glasses for you to take.

“Better,” Yoongi hums, voice like velvet. “Much better.”

Leaning your head into the crook between his neck and shoulder, you tip your glass back, swigging the smoky, burning whisky. You make a content sound, drawing a laugh from Yoongi. The sound rumbles against you.

“Let’s stay here forever,” you mutter, gazing at the crackling flames. “We don’t need to go back.”

“Okay.”

“Really, just like that?”

You feel him shrug behind you. “I’m always down to do what you want. If you’re a bird, I’m a bird and all that.”

“God did you watch The Notebook with Jimin again?”

Yoongi’s laughter is louder this time. “Maybe so.”

Night stretches on and your whisky glass empties. It’s not enough to make you feel buzzed, but you feel snug in Yoongi’s arms, turning your head to press your nose against his neck. He shivers behind you and you giggle, nuzzling him further.

Yoongi nudges the glasses further away. His hands wrap around your middle and he squeezes you, turning his head so that his mouth rests against your forehead. Your skin buzzes where his lips are pressed, warm and wet as his tongue slips out and across your forehead.

“Ewww, Yoongi!”

He laughs. “What do you mean ‘ew’? You weren’t saying ew last night when my tongue was in that pussy.”

Yoongi’s words are heavy. They sink right through you to your core, a lick of arousal hot in your stomach as his hands drift from your waist to your thighs. Even through sweats, your skin heats up as his palms skate gently over the fabric, fingers squeezing as they go.

You squirm in his lap and Yoongi tuts, making you go boneless. Burying your face in his neck, you let his hands brush back up and under the hem of your shirt, jumping when his calloused fingers make contact with the softness of your stomach. A small sound escapes you, his tough featherlight and sending chills up your spine.

Every drag of his touch across your skin makes you feel hotter than the fireplace in front of you. You suck in a sharp breath as he drags his fingers on the underside of your breasts, soft-slow touch driving you mad. You squeeze your eyes shut, pressing your back into him as you arch a little, unable to sit entirely still.

Yoongi just laughs, the sound like honey dripping in your ears.

“Kiss me,” he says softly, nudging you with his head.

It feels like your head weighs a ton when you lift it to look up at him, your world spinning. His gaze is dark, smile lazy as he leans forward, pressing your lips to his. Yoongi’s mouth is slow and decadent, sucking at your bottom lip gently before pressing his tongue against your lips.

Years ago when you’d kissed Yoongi for the first time, you knew that no one else could kiss you like this. No one else could brush their tongue against yours, making your thighs squeeze together with just the simple melding of mouths. Now, you can’t get enough of his wet mouth on yours, leaning up into him as he hum-laughs at your eagerness.

Distracted, you barely realize that his hands are cupping your tits now until his thumbs brushing gently over your hardened nipples. You gasp into his mouth and he doesn’t let up, turning the slow kiss into something a little more demanding, a little hungrier.

Yoongi could swallow you whole and you’d let him. He could burn you up from the inside out after taking you apart piece by piece and lighting you on fire.

He pinches your nipples, pleasure rippling through you. The effect reverberates to your aching cunt, thighs pressed together to relieve the throb between your legs. Too easy for him. You know it’s easy and you used to hate it, but now, as Yoongi keeps one hand tweaking a nipple and the other slides down, you love it.

Love that he works you up like this. Loves that he knows how. Love that he can give you what you want without making you beg too much for it.

Tonight, Yoongi is indulgent. His hand is sure as it slips beneath the waistband of your sweats. You part your legs for him, placing them on the outside of his spread knees. He lets out a hum of appreciation, fingers slipping between your sticky folds.

“Good girl,” he whispers. You don’t know if he means because you’re dripping for him or because you open yourself up to him without command. Maybe it’s both. “Such a wet pussy, hmm?”

You nod, dropping your mouth from his lips to his neck, your lips messy and spit-slicked against his soft skin. Your tongue darts out, laving the tender spot beneath his ear and he moans. “Please,” you ask, kissing him there. “Don’t tease me.”

“I’m not.”

He continues to drag his fingers up and down your pussy, careful to avoid your clit. You feel like you’re going to fall away into time and space, but it’s also not nearly enough. Your thighs squeeze, fighting the urge to shut your legs.

“You arrrre.”

“Only a little.”

Finally - finally - Yoongi applies pressure to your clit, circling it gently with the collected juices from your leaking entrance. You soften in his hold, complete putting as he draws fluttering gasps and breaths from you, pleasure blossoming from your pussy to your stomach.

Biting your lip, you squirm a little in his lap. Yoongi’s legs spread a little wider, pulling your legs apart further, the stretch in your thighs pleasure-laced pain added to the stimulation. Yoongi lets go of your chest, sliding his hand down to tug at your sweats.

“Help me out, baby.”

Lifting your ass for him, you help him pull your sweats down but not all the way off. It’s just enough to display your glistening cunt in the firelight. He doesn’t delay a second, hand coming back to use one middle finger to lazily trace patterns around your clit and the other to explore further, teasing your hole.

“Greedy,” he mumbles. You’re not sure if he’s talking to you or your pussy as he slips a finger in, making your hips buck. “Keep still.”

“It’s hard,” you shoot back as he slowly begins to fuck you with his finger, his other hand careful not to stimulate you too fast. “Feels good.”

“Better than your own fingers when I’m gone?”

“Yes.”

“Better than-”

“Not better than your cock,” you gasp as his finger brushes against your g-spot. “Stop asking stupid questions, Yoongi.”

He just laughs but concedes, setting a pace matched with both of his hands. Your eyes roll back as you sink low against him, hips sliding down further to chase his thrusting hand. He pulls you apart so easily, knowing exactly the speed and depth to press, knows exactly when to add another finger, the stretch and pressure maddening.

Flames lick at the logs in front of you, heating up your skin even more. Yoongi is relentless, pulling you toward your orgasm at an agonizing pace. After years of practice, no one knows how to lure you better than him, no one knows how to string you up on the edge of a precipice, breath stilted, body shaking.

“Come on,” he murmurs, kissing your neck. “You want it so bad.”

And you do want it. You’re a writhing mess, feet digging into the blankets beneath you, legs straining against the waistband of your sweats that are pulled to the knees, nails digging into Yoongi’s forearms. The wet sound of him working your cunt makes the room spin, your arousal loud and messy and so so so good.

“Fuck,” you growl through gritted teeth. You clench up around his fingers, leg muscles twitching, shoulders pulling in as you start to seize up. “I’m gonna-”

You can’t finish your sentence. He thrusts his fingers harder, pressing right up against your soft spot, the pressure driving you to the edge of insanity. You think you’ll break in his hands, shatter to pieces with the force building in your gut.

“Yeah,” Yoongi agrees, as he slips a third finger in, fucking you hard, leaning forward and bending you in half as he uses the leverage to thrust his fingers upward. “You’re fucking gonna.”

“Shit!”

Between the angle, Yoongi’s knowing hands, and the sloppy, all tongue and teeth kiss he places on your shoulders, you break. You come around his fingers hard, wet, hot and screaming his name. He keeps going, the soaked sound of his fingers fucking your hole bracketed by your cursing as you squeal and lean away from him, trying to escape the grip of your orgasm.

Yoongi doesn’t let you. He pulls every drop of it out of you until you’re seeing white, your body filled with static. He goes until you’re boneless once more, useless in his lap as you gasp raggedly for air. Sweat-slick, overheated and mindless, you lay in his lap for a second as he slowly pulls his hands back. You feel empty without them, whining.

“Hush,” he admonishes, biting your arm lightly. “I’m not done with you yet.”

#yoongi smut #suga smut #min yoongi smut #yoongi fanfic #yoongi x reader #bts suga #bts fanfic #minors do not interact #minors dni #bts suga smut #halis happy agust #yoongi fluff

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sunhoures · 8 months

Text

And It Was All Yellow

pairing: wonwoo (svt) + reader (fem.)

genre: fluff, strangers to friends to lovers, photographer!wonwoo, artist!reader (+ journalist!mingyu)

word count: ~5.7k

synopsis: wonwoo doesn’t believe in love at first sight, but he finds himself falling for you a lot sooner than he thought possible

inspired by: the text post pictured above ^^ & the song “yellow” by coldplay 💛

posted: august 21, 2023

The weather in Seoul was dull—gray clouds and scattered, drizzling rain suspended over the city since dawn had broken. Most people hated such weather, but Jeon Wonwoo was not one of those people. In fact, he found comfort in the gloominess. He enjoyed the idea of having an excuse to stay in. And if he did need to go outside, he liked that there was a lack of the usual crowd of people that would be around if the weather was more ideal. Traffic was less compacted. Lines of any kind were short (or non-existent). The city was quiet, just as he liked it.

On days like today, he preferred to spend his time inside with a book or playing video games. But work had been scarce for him these past few weeks, so when his best friend, Mingyu, had informed him of a job offer he had no choice but to accept it. That’s how he ended up at a local art museum downtown at 9:45 a.m. on a Thursday morning. Despite the doors not opening for another fifteen minutes, a worker had let him in through the front door when he got her attention and pointed to his camera bag. She realized he didn’t have an umbrella with him, and so she quickly let him in. Luckily he had a raincoat over his outfit and a hat to protect his hair, so the most he had to deal with was a little rain on the back of his neck. He thanked the worker, staying close to the door to get any glimpse of Mingyu arriving.

In the meantime, he watched the cars pass by outside, each one splashing water out of the puddle and onto the sidewalk just in front of the entrance to the museum. He noticed it had lightened up a bit outside, the sky turning from a darker gray to a lighter gray with wispy, white clouds. He wondered if anyone would even show up to this exhibit opening in such weather conditions.

About five minutes after he arrived, Mingyu came knocking on the door, covering his head with a magazine. The worker came back and opened the door for him, deciding to leave it unlocked. Wonwoo’s younger friend came in, complaining under his breath about forgetting his umbrella and getting wet. He shook the sopping magazine, droplets of water falling onto the concrete floor. His gray button-up was a darker gray on the shoulders and sleeves from the rain that seeped into it. Wonwoo noticed the worker glaring at his friend for dripping on the floor and tried not to let his amusement show.

“Forgot your umbrella too?” he questioned Mingyu, “Hopefully your notebook didn’t get ruined.”

His friend looked to the bag he had hanging from his shoulder. The bag didn’t have a zipper, but it did have a flap that fell over the opening to keep it “closed” in a sense. He quickly shoved his hand inside, feeling around for his notebook. When he felt the edges of the paper and confirmed they were dry, he smiled, “All good. And why so early? That’s unusual.”

“I’m never late,” Wonwoo defended.

“Yeah, but if I tell you to be somewhere at ten a.m. you usually don’t walk in until nine fifty-eight.”

The older of the two shrugged, “Got an early start today.”

The two men began their work day, Wonwoo fine-tuning the settings on his camera to his liking while Mingyu made some preliminary notes in his notebook. They set up together in the lobby, but once the artist had arrived, Mingyu excused himself to greet her. Wonwoo stayed in the lobby, taking a couple of test pictures to see if anything else needed to be adjusted. Around him several museum workers, journalists, and other photographers were gathering with the artist. Wonwoo wasn’t the biggest fan of interacting with strangers, so he kept to himself. Luckily, he busied himself with his camera which was enough to keep people from disrupting him.

Once Mingyu returned to his friend, the two joined the growing crowd waiting by the entrance to the new exhibit where a ceremonial ribbon cutting was about to take place. Wonwoo found the ribbon to be a bit superfluous. Nonetheless, he stood towards the back of the small crowd, arms crossed and camera slung around his neck by its strap. He was hired to take some pictures of the event and the art pieces for Mingyu’s article, and that was it. It was somewhat easy money for him, but it did take more time and social interaction than he liked. Truthfully, he couldn’t wait for this to be over and go home to edit.

He watched you, the artist, get behind the ribbon and make your speech thanking everyone for showing up. He snapped a couple pictures as you thanked the museum for giving your art a home temporarily. After a few minutes, you ended your speech by giving a small spiel about how art was therapeutic to you and it should be for everyone else. He found himself subconsciously nodding in agreement, because photography was a form of therapy for him as well.

The ribbon was cut after your speech, and the congregation of guests entered the exhibit for the first time. Mingyu and Wonwoo brought up the rear, but they were just as astonished as every single person ahead of them when they saw the art on display. Several paintings of various mediums hung on the walls, varying in size. The large columns in the middle of the room also held paintings on them, each piece of art accompanied by a small plaque with information about it—like the title and date. Mingyu, just like the other journalists, was already jotting down notes in his book, the tip of his tongue poking out of the corner of his pressed lips in concentration. Wonwoo peered around the room, simply taking everything in. His hands held his camera which was still hanging from his neck.

The two friends walked around together, patiently waiting for the other guests to continue on before taking their time in front of a piece to write or take pictures. As they got to the last few paintings, Mingyu made a comment about finding the bathroom, and that he would be back shortly. Wonwoo nodded and continued to snap a few pictures of the paintings before him. He came to a stop in front of a simple painting of sunflowers; the acrylic paint forming a kind of 3D effect on the canvas. He stared at that one for a moment longer than the rest of them, not for any particular reason, he supposed. It didn’t stand out from the others or anything, but he liked it for a reason he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

“Do you like sunflowers?”

Your voice startled him, though he didn’t show it. He merely turned to you, giving you a small nod of acknowledgement as well as a small, polite smile, “They’re fine I guess.”

“This was one of my first pieces I made in art school,” you explained, and it was then he noticed it did indeed have the earliest date posted among all of the canvases in the room.

“It’s nice,” he said, “Congratulations, by the way. You’re very talented.”

Your face broke into a sweet smile despite that being the nth compliment of this morning. Each one felt like a gold star being rewarded to you, and it filled you with happiness. You gestured to his camera, “Do you work for a magazine?”

“Um, sort of,” he shrugged, “My friend does, he just has me shoot pictures for his articles.”

“Oh, I do remember seeing you with someone,” you remembered, “Um, the tall one with the gray shirt, right?”

“Yes.”

“I see. I haven’t gotten to speak with him in depth yet, do you know if he’ll be back soon?”

“He should be returning from the bathroom soon,” he replied. Usually Wonwoo was terrible at making conversation with strangers. He dreaded it. But you gave off such a comforting, welcoming energy. He found himself wanting to talk to you about, well, anything, “This weather isn’t too ideal for this occasion, isn’t it?”

“The rain?” you asked, “Yeah, it’s a bummer, but the turn out was great still. I didn’t think so many people would come.”

“Why’s that?” his brow raised slightly in curiosity.

“I didn’t think my art was special enough to warrant such an exhibit. One of my mentors from art school is friends with the head of the museum, and he asked him for a favor. He’s put a lot of time and faith in me, but I don’t think my art is worth such a grandiose gesture,” you spoke so casually, as if it was fact. Wonwoo found your confession to be a little disheartening. Sure, the art might not have the prestige to qualify for the MoMA or the Louvre, but to someone like him who casually enjoyed art, your work was impressive.

“Well, I’m glad he did. Your work is amazing,” Wonwoo was a man of few words, but he hoped the few he could give would bring you some reassurance. And for the moment it did. You smiled warmly, perking up further when Mingyu returned to the both of you.

“Hello again, would you be able to spare a few minutes with me?” he asked you, already getting his notebook and pen from his bag. You agreed, and the two of you began a conversation while Wonwoo continued to snap some photos of the last paintings. When he was done, he waited patiently for you and Mingyu to finish your conversation. Around ten minutes passed, and the crowd was fluctuating as some people left and some newcomers joined. Wonwoo watched the guests observe the art, getting some inspiration to take photos of them as well. He figured some candid pictures would look nice too. He even got one of you and Mingyu discussing the sunflower piece before he approached the two of you again.

The three of you talked for what felt like hours but in reality was only twenty minutes. At some point the conversation had veered from art to your social lives. Mingyu was a very sociable, outgoing person, so it didn’t take long for him to strike a casual conversation with you. He had learned that the three of you frequented the same coffee shop a few streets away.

“We’ll have to get coffee together some time,” you said, “Should we swap numbers?”

Mingyu happily did so, and the two of you swapped phones to add each others contacts. You made a comment about getting with some other journalists, but you promised to stay in touch before leaving the two men with a “thank you for coming!”.

The rain had cleared up by the time the two friends left the museum. They walked together to the bus stop across the street, waiting for the bus that would be passing shortly. While they waited, they talked about the notes Mingyu got and the shots Wonwoo took.

“She was really sweet,” Mingyu said with a smile, “She told me she didn’t have many friends in the city. We’ll have to take her out with our friends some time soon.”

“Sure,” was all Wonwoo responded absentmindedly, replying to a text from his brother.

“She was pretty, too,” Mingyu added in a suggestive tone.

That made Wonwoo look up from his phone with a pointed look, “What are you implying?”

“Nothing,” his friend shrugged, but his expression was telling before his mouth was, “It’s just been a while since you’ve dated is all. You two seemed to be getting along well.”

The older man rolled his eyes, returning them to his phone as he opened Instagram and proceeded to scroll through his explore page, “I spoke to her for five minutes while you were in the bathroom. I’m not going to fall in love with her in five minutes.”

His friend sighed, “You’ll never fall in love if you’re not open to a potential relationship.”

Wonwoo got quiet then, and the conversation didn’t pick up again until shortly before the bus arrived. On the ride he thought about what Mingyu said. It was true, he hadn’t dated in a very long time, since college actually. Now that he was twenty-seven, it was getting harder and harder for him to find himself in a situation to meet someone. He rarely left his house. He spent his free time doing things alone, and when he did go out with his friends he stuck to them pretty closely. On top of all of that, he wasn’t the most approachable person. He wasn’t a cold person, or at least he didn’t consider himself one. But his looks gave the impression that he was, his sharp eyes and straight-drawn lips making him seem standoffish.

And unlike his friends, he didn’t believe in “love at first sight”. The idea of meeting someone for the first time and instantly being head over heels for them just didn’t connect with him. He didn’t understand how others felt that. When he dated in the past, it took weeks, even months to fall for the person he had a crush on. And he wasn’t necessarily upset with the way he lived; he didn’t mind being alone. Since he was a kid, he always felt more comfortable doing things by himself. But lately he realized his day-to-day did feel a little lonely, especially since most of his friends were settling down with their partners or moving away to pursue careers. Maybe Mingyu was right. Maybe he did need some kind of change.

The first time you hung out with the two men after meeting them at the museum, Mingyu had invited you to join them for lunch. The three of you ate Korean barbecue, learning a bit about each other over a few bottles of soju. Wonwoo didn’t do much talking that time, mostly speaking only when spoken to. You and Mingyu carried the conversations, not that either of you minded. You felt like Wonwoo would need time to open up to you, so you gave him that. Luckily, the two agreed to hang out with you again later in the week. Mingyu had to get some editing done, so he invited you and Wonwoo to keep him company at his apartment.

You were shocked when Wonwoo was the one to engage in conversation with you first, greeting you at the door and welcoming you in. He and Mingyu were preparing a simple dinner, so you sat at the kitchen island watching them cook. You noticed Wonwoo seemed more comfortable talking this time around. Maybe it was because you had hung out already, or maybe it was because he was in a familiar environment. Either way you liked seeing a little crack in the shell that kept his true personality shielded away from you.

Over a couple months the three of you became really close, and you had even met some of their other friends. Mingyu’s office wasn’t far from the art supply store you visited every week, so you made it a habit to visit him every Thursday on your supply runs. The two of you would get lunch or just sit in his office and talk during his break before you returned to your art studio. You really liked the friendship blossoming between you and the two men, but then one day something changed.

Wonwoo texted you out of the blue one Saturday mid-morning asking if you wanted to get some coffee with him. You found it odd that he texted you because he had never done that before. It was usually Mingyu who texted you, or they texted you in a group chat that you had together. Nonetheless, you responded with “of course!” and got dressed.

When you showed up to the café you were confused to see Wonwoo sitting at a two-seater table by himself. You noticed he looked like he put more effort into his appearance today. Normally when you hung out he was in lounging clothes—a simple shirt with sweatpants or maybe loose jeans. The only time you remembered seeing him dressed this nicely was the day you met, and he was working then. But he didn’t mention working today? So what could be the occasion for him to wear off-white pants, a mustard yellow sweater, and what looked like new shoes?

He was reading something on his phone when you approached him, the light from the screen reflecting on his thin-rimmed glasses. When you set your purse down, he looked up at you and gave you a small smile, “Hey.”

“Hi, is Mingyu not joining?” you asked curiously as you sat across from him. You didn’t notice when the corners of his mouth wavered for a second.

“No, he’s working. You’re stuck with just me today,” he joked.

You chuckled softly, “Don’t make it sound so bad. Was there a reason you wanted to hang out today though? I have to say I was a little shocked when you texted me.”

It was Mingyu’s idea, but Wonwoo didn’t want to admit that. His friend had pointed it out that the two of you had never hung out alone. He figured it might help Wonwoo warm up to you more if you spent some time together one-on-one. And even though he didn’t say it out loud, Wonwoo knew Mingyu secretly wanted the two of you to work out romantically—for whatever reason, he wasn’t sure. Wonwoo wasn’t completely closed off to the idea; you were gorgeous and friendly. But he knew it wasn’t going to be an overnight thing. It took weeks for him to feel comfortable with you as a friend, he could only imagine the time it would take to start a romantic relationship.

“I, um, just realized we never got a chance to hang out alone. We don’t really know much about each other outside of our hang outs with Mingyu,” he said. In that moment he also realized how tense he felt. His legs were stiff and knees were drawn in close together under the table. His fingers toyed with the wrapper of his straw from his iced americano. His shoulders were drawn in the slightest bit, and he could feel his posture was kind of terrible. He tried to relax without making it look obvious that he was tense in the first place.

“Yeah, I guess I figured you just didn’t like to socialize as much as Mingyu did.”

“I don’t, but I’m trying to be better about that,” he admitted, and you felt like you might actually be getting somewhere with him, “He teases me a lot about being a hermit.”

You laughed softly, and he smiled with you, “Well, it’s nice to see you coming out of your shell.”

After an appreciative look from him, you excused yourself to order a drink. Wonwoo immediately opened his phone and texted Mingyu.

wonu 🐈‍⬛: ok i’m here, now what do we talk about?

gyu 🐶: well first, don’t be on your phone smh. second, just ask her questions about herself. seem interested. try not to look bored like you always do

Wonwoo sighed in annoyance, ignoring the last part of his message as he turned his phone over on the table. You returned shortly after, also with an iced americano. He decided to give his friend’s advice a try, “Do you always order iced americanos?”

“Only sometimes. My go-to is usually a hot latte, but it’s a bit warm for that today,” you shrugged, taking a sip of your drink. He nodded in understanding, but he was unsure of what else to say. It was so much easier to converse with people you’ve been friends with for several years.

Luckily you had no issue with it, and you broke the awkward silence up for him, “How long have you been doing photography?”

“I’ve done it as a hobby since I was in high school, but after I graduated I started doing freelance work. So, almost ten years.”

“I’d love to see your work some time,” you spoke fondly, remembering the first time you met, “Your shots of my exhibit were amazing, so I can imagine the rest of your work is too.“

“My stuff doesn’t compare to the art you make,” he said it without even thinking. You weren’t sure if you should take it as a self-deprecating remark or flattery.

Your lips quipped into a thoughtful line before you derailed, “Okay, your turn. Ask me a question.”

“Oh, are we playing twenty questions?” Wonwoo joked, sitting back in his chair and sipping on his drink. The sunlight beamed directly across his right eye and onto his cheek. His eye was a deep chocolate brown color as opposed to the dark, cold, almost-black color it usually was. You wondered if his eyes were always that soft.

“Yeah, I’ve just decided. Your turn,” you repeated. You crossed your arms on top of the table, subtly leaning in as a sign of giving him all your attention. He fought the smile wanting to live on his lips, opting to look deep in thought. The two of you went back and forth for nearly half an hour, just asking each other questions. Some answers warranted tangents and story times before you went back to the questions, but you enjoyed it to the fullest. And truthfully, Wonwoo was too. He didn’t think he could get so much enjoyment from a game he used to play with his friends in grade school, yet here he was. On the verge of laughter as you told an embarrassing story from high school in which you were running late to school and didn’t realize until your second class that your underwear was stuck to the back of your shirt.

“I can’t believe you did that,” Wonwoo laughed softly, a crinkle appearing on the bridge of his nose, “I would’ve dropped out of school.”

“I thought about it,” you joked, a bashful smile on your lips as you remembered the story like it happened yesterday, “But yeah, if you’re going to get your clothes from the dryer, double check that your under garments aren’t stuck to them first.”

“Noted,” Wonwoo looked over and noticed that a new couple was sitting at the table behind you. That was the second time new people sat right there. He wondered how long you two had been sitting, but he didn’t want to check his phone in case you got the impression that he was in a rush to leave. Which he definitely wasn’t, “Okay, I think it’s your turn again.”

“Okay, um . . . “ your eyes searched the room for a question prompt, but you were grasping for straws- Wait, that’s it. Straws. The cups of plastic-covered straws on the counter were organized by color, one cup for each color they offered—pink, blue, and yellow, “What’s your favorite color?”

“Hm, why don’t you guess?” Wonwoo replied.

If he was honest, he didn’t really have a favorite color. He supposed if he considered it more he would settle for blue or purple, but he didn’t care enough either way. A good ninety-five percent of his wardrobe was black and five percent color, but he just liked black as a good neutral color to wear. He figured he would just let you guess until you decided to give up.

You thought about it for a moment, but no specific color came to mind immediately. His clothes were mostly black, but lots of people wore black clothing and had a favorite color that wasn’t black. His shirt was yellow as well as the straw for his americano, but there was no other indication that it would be his favorite color from what you could remember. Still, you figured it might be your best guess, “Yellow!”

Wonwoo couldn’t help but smile at your prideful declaration. You said it as if you knew it for a fact.

“Yeah.”

“Wait, really?” your eyes got wide and the grin on your face grew wide. Did you really guess it correctly in one try?

Even Wonwoo was shocked by his answer. Yellow wasn’t his favorite color. He didn’t have one. But you seemed so excited and hopeful and sure of yourself that he didn’t even think twice about his answer.

“Yeah, good job,” he praised you, and he had to admit to himself you looked really cute when you clapped your hands together in a small celebration for yourself, “What’s yours?”

“Pink,” you seemed visibly brighter when you answered. It made sense to Wonwoo. Pink was such a cute, bright, outgoing color. It signified friendliness and sweetness, and all of that just screamed you. Maybe he liked pink too. “It’s been my favorite since I was a kid. Everything I had was pink.”

“Pink suits you.”

You felt yourself flushing at the compliment, your smile turning sheepish, “I think yellow suits you, too. I’m picturing a nice pastel yellow for you. Very spring.”

He tried to picture it: him in a pastel yellow shirt. The mental image seemed foreign, since the mustard sweater he was currently wearing was the brightest color he had ever worn besides white. But he wouldn’t be opposed to it.

“Alright, your turn.”

A few more questions were exchanged between you two, long after your cups were emptied. The patrons of the café that had been present when you showed up were long gone, and new faces took their places. After a while you felt a little guilty for hogging the table for so long, even though it had only been a little under two hours. Wonwoo made a comment about heading out, so you both got up and threw your trash. He walked with you to the bus station, even though he had driven to the café in his own car. You thanked him for inviting you to hang out and told him that you enjoyed it.

“We’ll have to do this again some time, but maybe not tell Mingyu. He might get jealous,” you teased your non-present friend, making Wonwoo laugh softly. He knew for a fact that Mingyu would have no problem with it; he would probably encourage it, if anything.

“I don’t think he’d mind. He’s not usually the jealous type,” Wonwoo replied, stuffing his hands into his pants pockets. He tried to think of something you two could do together, and he recalled that during the twenty—more like fifty plus—questions you had said you liked video games too, “If you want, we could hang out at my apartment, play some video games. And order pizza or something?”

“That sounds like fun!” your eyes lit up at the idea. You had never actually been to his apartment before. Every time you hung out was at Mingyu’s place, your place, or somewhere in the city. You wondered what his apartment looked like. He seemed like the type to keep everything tidy and minimal, “I’ll be pretty busy this week, but maybe we can work something out for next weekend.”

“Cool,” he nodded and kept small talk until the bus arrived to pick you and a handful of other people up. He waved you off politely, and when you were out of sight, he let out a hefty sigh. It felt like a weight had been taken off his shoulders, but not in a bad way. He liked you, so there was this small, subconscious pressure that he felt to be more outgoing. He wanted you to like him too.

Over the next few weeks, there was a shift in the dynamic between the three of you, and it seemed to be obvious to everyone except Wonwoo. You and him had grown a lot closer as you started to hang out alone outside of your usual outings with Mingyu and their other friends. And it showed when the group was together. You always took the seat closest to Wonwoo. He laughed more at your jokes. You complimented his outfits—which were slowly but progressively becoming more colorful. He offered to walk you to your car or the bus or home whenever he could. Yet, still, when asked if anything was going on between you two, he seemed confused.

“It’s not like that,” he told Mingyu when the two were walking to a job they had booked one afternoon—a restaurant opening, “________ and I have gotten close, but not that close.”

“Hey, I know you wear glasses, but you can’t be this blind,” his friend retorted, “You two like each other.”

Wonwoo faltered a bit as he walked, but tried to play it off, “Did she say she liked me?”

“No, but she doesn’t need to. Neither do you, but as your best friend it would be nice if you told me these things.”

Wonwoo rolled his eyes, annoyed that Mingyu had made him think you had finally admitted having feelings for him.

“You two act like you’re in your own world all the time. The guys notice it, too, not just me,” Mingyu continued, “And since when do you like yellow so much?”

The question took Wonwoo so off guard that he laughed incredulously, “What?”

“She’s always giving you stuff that’s yellow. And you started wearing yellow clothes,” Mingyu pointed out. And it was true.

The first thing you had gifted him was a simple pen; it was a sunflower yellow color with black lettering etched on the side that said ‘hello, sunshine!’. He was confused when you had handed it to him that second time you hung out together to play video games. You showed up on his doorstep, telling him to close his eyes and put out his hands. When he had opened them again the pen was sat in his palms.

“What’s this for?”

“Nothing, I guess. I was at the supply store and noticed it by the check out, and I thought about you. So I got it for you. It’s cute, isn’t it?”

Wonwoo honestly had no reason to use such a pen since his day-to-day work required little writing. And most of his notes were made in his phone, but the sentiment behind your gift made his heart flutter, “It is. Thank you, _______.”

And nearly every time after then you had gifted him things similar. While at the park with him and Mingyu, you bought him a banana flavored popsicle, solely for the fact that it was yellow—and you were relieved to find out he liked the banana flavor. When you went bowling with their friends, you gave him the yellow ball and left yourself with the last one which was brown. When you went to Mingyu’s to see the two of them, you had brought them each a keychain from a new pop-up shop that was near your art studio. You gave Mingyu a red one that had a soccer ball on it while Wonwoo’s was yellow and had a sunflower on it. You had initially got it because of its color, but the flower reminded you of the day you met him, so it held even more sentiment.

And recently, Wonwoo’s favorite water bottle had broken, so while you were out shopping you had found one that was similar to it. The cap was a little different, but it had the same shape and size, and it was a golden yellow hue.

When you gave it to him, the two of you were about to leave his apartment to get some dinner at the fried chicken place down the street. You had mentioned that you had a surprise for him, then you fished the bottle out of your tote bag to show him. His heart skipped a beat and a smile crept onto his lips when he saw it.

“I know you probably won’t love it as much as your other bottle, but hopefully you still like it,” you said with a shrug of your shoulders. He took it from your offering grasp and shook his head.

“I do love it,” he said.

“You can leave it here while we go eat,” you turned towards the door, pulling your bag more securely onto your shoulder. But just before you could reach for the doorknob, Wonwoo’s voice called your name, making you turn back to face him, “Hm?”

Your eyes widened when you realized he was a lot closer than you thought, just a foot or so away from you. His tall frame seemed to tower over you, causing you to have to look up at him. You could see a struggle happening behind his eyes, as if he was going back and forth in his mind trying to decide on something. You were about to question him when suddenly he leaned forward and placed a quick kiss to your cheek. The skin that he touched felt hot in his wake, the warmth spread across your face and ultimately your whole body felt heated under his gaze.

“Thank you, ________. For everything,” he spoke softly, his anxiety apparent in his tone. He averted his gaze, looking down at his hands. A bracelet that you had bought him last week was wrapped around his wrist—white beads and yellow smiley face charms decorating it. For some reason seeing the jewelry gave him the little boost of confidence he needed to ask, “Would you like to make this a date?”

Your eyes widened even further, but you couldn’t ignore the flurry of butterflies going wild inside your chest, their fluttering wings tickling your heart. Your crush on Wonwoo had started long before his crush on you had formed, but that didn’t bother you. Because you knew that he liked you now, and you couldn’t pass the opportunity to say, “Yes.”

A charming smile grew wide on his face, prompting you to grin too. Happiness bloomed inside you, and the two of you walked out of the apartment suddenly feeling shy after wordlessly admitting your feelings for each other. Despite his nerves, though, Wonwoo found the courage to take your hand in his as you walked down the sidewalk to the fried chicken place.

Along the way you pointed out some yellow canola flowers planted outside of an office building, and Wonwoo decided in that moment that he would never get tired of the color yellow. The way your face lit up when you saw it or gave him yellow-themed gifts, he would always find it cute. As far as he was concerned, the entire world could be covered in the color yellow, and he would be content just knowing it made you happy. He no longer would appreciate rain; instead, he would look forward to sunny days when the bright, yellow sunlight would remind him of you and your kind heart. Maybe yellow wasn’t his favorite color at first but, over time, it would be.

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rustedhearts · 1 year

Text

Montana Motel (Boxer!Steve x Fem!reader)

summary: lately, steve’s been existing at a distance. but at a motel in montana, you find each other again.

uses she/her pronouns and female anatomy.

♡ the steve collection ♡

warnings: angst, Steve being a dick as usual, possessive behavior, toxic behavior/argument, smut, hair pulling, choking (ish?)

author's note: you know the drill, kids. listen to western nights by my girl ethel ♡ can be found in the steve + libby playlist ♡

somewhere in montana, august 1990

The road is empty.

A long, winding stretch of grey asphalt against green land. Wide expanses of looming trees can be seen through every window of the SUV, and just up ahead through the windshield, the pale blue sky awaits. Montana seems to be full of nothing but land, and you can't imagine where Steve's fight could be amidst the miles of wilderness—but they called, and Steve came.

Beside you in the backseat, Steve's head knocks into the glass with every bump and jostle in the road. He seems unaffected, arms crossed, shades on, head lolling around. You came straight from his last fight in Washington, and Big and Mikey decided that a road trip was in order, to "see the sights." You weren't seeing very many confined in the blacked out car, but you supposed it was the thought that counts.

Your luggage fills the trunk—the same bunch of clothing you'd been wearing for weeks, with a few additions from Steve picked up along the way. It's been nonstop. Fight, sleep, travel, repeat. He never stopped. Sometimes, on the few sporadic days that he had off between fights, all Steve did was sleep. He could barely move with the welts on his abdomen and spine. He could only open his jaw a few inches to shove in a spoon or fork, and you had to pretend you didn't see the way he winced with every blink and swallow. Boxing was like having an eternal flu—you were always sore, you were always in pain.

Steve was never himself anymore.

You faced each other when you slept, but he never held you anymore. His lips brushed your cheeks, pecked your lips, but he rarely kissed you. Not a real kiss, not the way you wanted. The last time you made love was four fights ago, in Chicago. A month ago. It wasn't as if you hadn't tried—there were nights you were so restless that you writhed in the tub and pouted in the elevator on the way up to the hotel room. But Steve was always too tired, too sore, too angry. He was always angry.

Comfortability was a foreign feeling these days. You never stayed in one city long enough to get familiar. You often found yourself sitting on white hotel beds, with cold hotel sheets, staring at the plastic hotel telephone. You had your parents' landline memorized, and you repeated the numbers in your head until you were too frazzled to think of much else. You picked up the phone, dialed the number, and slammed it back down. Sometimes, you didn't dial anything at all.

You just listened to the dial tone humming, trying to imagine the sound of your father's voice breaking through. You worried that if you were to call, he'd hear it in your voice—how tired you were. How sad you were. He'd tell you to come home, and you'd listen.

But what about Steve? You looked at your boxer drooling on his arm beside you, just as Big whipped the wheel into the half-empty lot of a truck stop. Wasn't everything about Steve?

The car came to a stop, pulled in front of a rusting gas pump. Big popped the locks and hooked his chin over his shoulder to gaze back at you.

"Hey, wanna get out, stretch your legs? We can stay for a bit and get something to eat."

You flashed a smile, one that ached hollowly in your chest, and nodded your agreement.

"Yeah, that sounds good."

The hulking, bald-headed man tossed a look toward his sleeping protege. "Good luck waking that one up."

You giggled, assuring you'd be fine. Big stepped out of the car, jostling it with a slam of his door after. Mikey excused himself and followed suit, and you watched him sprint toward the bathroom sign bow-leggedly. With their departure, the car fell quiet. You turned to Steve again, clicking your seatbelt off. You rummaged through your purse at your feet and pulled Steve's wallet out of the zipper compartment.

"Steve." You reached over and rattled him by the shoulder gently. "Steve, do you want anything to drink?"

You waited. He continued to snore, glasses knocked askew on his squished face pressed into the window. You snickered, petting his arm.

"Stevie? I can get you a Gatorade if you want," you cooed.

Crouching over him, you waited for his response, but all he did was squirm and turn to cower against the window. You huffed, pulling on his arm a little harder.

"Steve—"

"Jesus, Libby!" He yanked his arm away, knocking into the window and causing you to jump back.

"I don't fuckin' care, I'm tryin' to fuckin' sleep. Christ," he roared.

Heart sinking, stomach twisting, you swallowed hard and popped the door handle. At the gas pump outside of the window, Big peered through the dark tint with scrunched brows.

"Okay...I'll just...be right back," you murmured weakly, slipping out of the car.

The air was warm, warmer than it was a few hours ago. It warmed your air-conditioned fingers and frozen nose, and the wind that billowed through your hair felt gentle and soothing as you headed toward the convenience store. A bell above the door chimed with your arrival, greeted with buzzing white lights, neon beverage storage, and aisles of processed food. You trailed your fingers along the packets of candy on the shelves as you headed toward the refrigerators. Your heart was in your throat as you pulled it open and shivered in the cool air.

A water, a blue Gatorade, and a meekly-asked-for pack of Marlboros reds later, you stood in front of the glass door and stared at the car. Steve was still nowhere to be seen, sulking inside the blackened confines of the SUV. Suddenly, as Big and Mikey chuckled about some shared joke between them, and feverishly lit a cigarette on the curb near the restroom, you didn't want to go back out.

"Need some help with that door?"

Whirling around, you giggled nervously at the sight of a man standing behind you. Tall, dressed in what you could only describe as lumberjack attire, donning a backwards red baseball cap—he had a cigarette tucked behind his ear and smiled beneath a scraggly red beard. He was ruggedly handsome, in an unkempt, wild way. But still, your skin crawled, your hair stood to its end at the back of your neck when he dragged his tongue over his teeth and soaked you in with a slow roam of his eyes.

"N-No," you stuttered, cheeks burning. "I just...I was just—"

"Here, let me help you carry those."

Before you could protest, the tall man gathered your drinks in his hands—eyeing you with vivid surprise at the cigarettes in your other hand—and shoved the door open with his arm. He stood in front of it to prop it open, motioning toward the warm, open air of the lot.

"After you." He grinned.

You wiped your hands on the pleated fabric of your shorts anxiously as you passed through. You could feel his figure behind you, following your slow ascent toward the car. Your gaze flashed to Big and Mikey, blowing puffs of smoke and chatting endlessly. They hadn't noticed you yet. You swallow hard again, turning once you were halfway to the car to smile at the stranger.

"I can take those now, you really didn't have to do that."

He shrugged, smiling another handsome smile.

"It's no problem. I can pump your gas, too. Pretty girls shouldn't have to pump their own gas—this your car right there?"

You stuttered again, face burning and swollen with heat, shirt clinging to your spine with sweat. Big and Mikey were heading toward you, cigarettes stamped out. You suddenly couldn't breathe.

Behind you, the back door to the SUV opened and slammed closed in one quick succession.

"Hey! The fuck are you doin' man?"

Steve was standing beside you in an instant, voice as gravely and roaring as earlier. You couldn't help but flinch when he grabbed your wrist and yanked you close. Your eyes found a wad of bubblegum flattened to the pavement.

"Oh, I...I was just helpin' her out, man. Didn't mean anything by it—"

"—I'd hope the fuck not," Steve sneered.

Big and Mikey roamed toward the car, and you glanced over Steve's shoulder at their departing backs. The car jostled again as they slid into the front seats.

"Steve," you sighed, lifting your eyes to his chest, clothed in black. "He was just being nice. He didn't—"

"—uh huh. I'll take my shit now, man."

The stranger extended the drinks slowly to Steve, who snatched them rudely with a continuous glare. Your fingers trembled around the Marlboros clutched to your chest as you followed his pulling guidance toward the car. You gazed off over your shoulder at the flanneled man, hoping the sorry in your eyes was evident enough.

Steve gave you a gentle shove into the backseat, but the slam of the door was anything but kind. You jumped, and Big sighed as Steve stomped around the hood of the car toward his side.

"He's just tired," the older man assured you.

All you could do was nod.

Steve was still scowling when he slid into the backseat beside you, and you kept your eyes on your knees as you flipped the pack of cigarettes over in your palm.

"I got you a new pack," you murmured sheepishly, holding them out. "I thought—"

"—why the fuck do you always have to flirt? Huh? Every time I look away, some fuckhead is suddenly all over you."

You frowned at his sharp accusation, but when he reached with a quick hand to take the Marlboros, you snatched them away. It was your knuckles that hit the window this time, and though the collision filled your hand with a dull ache, you couldn't find it in yourself to care. You only glared at Steve, whose eyes were hard and on display without his shades. Steve tipped his chin down and huffed at your behavior.

"Fuck you. How is this suddenly my fault? I was only trying to do something nice, and you find some way to yell at me.” You frowned.

Steve rolled his eyes, rubbing at his temple.

"Yeah, and I'm sure you thought that jackass was 'just being nice,' too. You never see what I see—you never see what fuckin' creeps these guys are!"

Steve smacked his hand on his knee, and your glare deepened. Big and Mikey shared a look in the front seat.

"I don't give a fuck! I was in there buying my boyfriend cigarettes, I don't care about some random guy. I shouldn't even care about you with the way you treat me."

Steve barked out a laugh, eyes rolling toward the window where he swiped a finger under his nose.

"Wow, okay. You were fuckin' shaking me, Libby, while I was trying to fuckin' sleep—"

"—but you don't always have to yell at me. You always yell at me."

Steve shrugged his shoulders, holding his hands up, palms upended.

"Alright, I'm fuckin' sorry I yelled at you!"

"No you're not—"

"—see? It's not good enough. Nothing is ever fuckin' good enough for you."

You growled, squishing the pack of Marlboros in a tight fist and subsequently tossing the crumpled pack at Steve's forehead. His face instantly fell at the gentle impact, and you popped the door handle open again to jump out of the car.

"I'm sick of this shit!" you screeched, just before slamming the door and stomping off toward the restrooms.

The sounds of Big and Mikey shouting at Steve followed you there, and you decided, upon staring at the dirtied steel door, that you'd sit on the curb instead. You plopped down, putting your elbows to your knees and your knees to your chest, and huffed. You wished you could call your father. You wished he would tell you to come home.

"Babyyyy."

Steve's voice came from across the lot, and you scowled into your hands over your face. His shoes scuffled closer, and finally came to a stop in front of you. His looming figure blocked the remnants of sun still shining through the evening.

"Angel," Steve scoffed, and you could picture him reaching out, only to pull back. "Come on, let's just...let's just go."

"Go where," you droned into your hands.

Steve sighed.

"Let's go home—"

"—but we're not going home," you interrupted, lifting your head to tip back and look at him.

Steve's face was blank, empty, like it always was. You stared at him for a moment, waiting for some semblance of softness to shine through and soothe you. But his hands just found his hips, and he shrugged his shoulders.

"Dunno what you want me to do, angel," he muttered, gazing down at his shoes to watch them kick at the curb you were sitting on. "S' my job, it's just...what I gotta do."

You huffed, looking off toward the slow moving road past the lot of the truck stop. Cars chugged by at a comical rate, so slow that you could study the face of every driver and read every license plate. At your silence, Steve sighed, and this time you watched him reach out, only to recoil and run his hands through his hair.

"Baby, I..."

Steve sighed again, and then suddenly it morphed into a growled—his fist connected with his palm, a sharp smack that echoed off the cement wall behind you. He stepped away, putting distance between the two of you.

"I fuckin'—I hate when you do this. I hate when you make me feel guilty for doin' my fuckin' job."

Your cheeks swelled with more heat, and you sank your teeth into your lip to keep the wobbling tears at bay as they kissed your eyes. You rubbed at one of them furiously. Steve came back with a scuffled stride and hovered, palms held out in front of him—out to you.

"I love you. You get that?"

Steve bent, leveling your faces, crowding you. You cowered back, still refusing to meet his gaze. But you could see him in your periphery, dark-eyed and brooding. His voice was tight, sharp, edged with impatience.

"I love you. And you just...you fuck with my head. You fuck with my head, and it makes me go fuckin' crazy." He tapped his temple with two fingers like a pistol.

You shook your head, letting go of your swollen lip.

"You just feel so far away, Steve," you whispered. "It's like you're not even there anymore."

Steve guffawed, making another sweeping motion with his open palms toward himself. "I'm right here."

You crossed your arms over your lap and frowned, looking off toward the car where Big and Mikey waited. Big's finger tapped the wheel in the driver's seat. You wondered how they had the patience to put up with the two of you.

"I’m right here, baby.” Steve kicked at the curb again, hair flouncing across his eyes as he shook his head. “What more do you want from me?" His voice had the faintest whimper of a whine.

You pulled your eyes away from the car and set them on his feet. You reached out and pulled on the laces, adjusting them around the arch of his foot. You twisted the dirtied white lace around your finger, and Steve watched you.

"I just...want you to show me, Stevie."

When you tipped your head back—the prettiest pout on your face, eyes catching the low-setting, golden sunlight, hair glistening and glowing—Steve's breath caught in his throat.

"Show me you love me."

Steve's brows rounded, furrowing together.

"I do. Baby, I thought...I-I do."

You shook your head.

"Not for a long time, Steve."

Steve's shoulders drooped, and you tore away from his shoe. You pushed off on your palms and stood, avoiding his hand reaching out for you. You still wore that pretty pout as you sulked toward the car.

Back inside, they turned on the radio, and Steve fumbled for the crumpled back of Marlboros as the car rolled back onto the road.

♡♡

Half the pack was gone by the time you reached nightfall. Still a few hours from your destination, far from civilization and deep in the mountains, Big pulled into the nearest motel for the night. You lingered in the back as they secured your rooms, and trudged after Steve quietly when he got your key.

The motel was smaller and much cheaper than what you were used to, but it was quiet. Surrounded by trees, insects and birds chittered and chirped as you ascended the metal stairs. The room smelled distinctly of cedar when Steve pushed the door open, and, oddly, you found it soothing. You dropped your bags on the bed, covered in a pale pink quilt. The sheets were green, pulled and folded neatly over the top quarter of the quilt. The pillows were fluffed and neatly stacked, and everything seemed to have gone untouched for decades.

Steve clicked on a small lamp, sitting on a wooden desk across from the bed. The walls, wood-paneled and rough, illuminated with a warm yellow glow. He swung the door closed and tossed the keys on the nightstand, duffel falling from his shoulder to sit beside your bags on the bed. You wandered toward the bathroom, and Steve stood, at the end of the bed, watching after you longingly.

The overhead light in the bathroom was dim, but it bathed you in the reflective, peachy pink of the gleaming tile. Steve watched as you stood in the doorway, hesitating to close the door with your back to him. His breathing grew shallow just watching you contemplate. Finally, you turned, but your eyes merely skimmed the end of the bed as you swung the door shut. The lock clicked, and Steve sank down on the end of the bed with a knot in his stomach.

The bathroom was cold, and you shivered as you peeled your sticky clothes off and toed them into a corner. It was clean, at least, and you turned the knob over to hot and filled up the deep, salmon-colored porcelain tub. You sighed as you sank into the wading warmth of the water, easing back against the cold tile with another shiver. Sporadic droplets plopped into the pool around you from the rusting spout, and you listened with your eyes closed. The other side of the door was silent.

You used the dry, rose-scented soap still in its dusty box on the edge of the tub and scrubbed until you felt clean enough to leave the water. Too eager for solitude, you'd left a change of clothes in your bag on the bed, and you clutched a scratchy towel tight to your chest as you cracked the bathroom door open.

The motel room was empty, but through the open curtains at the head of the room, you could see Steve clearly against the metal railing. Leaning forward on his elbows, the orange ember of a cigarette illuminating his face with a faint orange halo. You pushed the bathroom door open all the way and walked toward the bed.

Your towel had just dropped when Steve turned to peer in. He stopped at the sight of your bare body, cigarette paused before his parted lips. His mouth went dry just at the sight of you—his girl. His angel, his baby, the prettiest woman he'd ever seen. If you knew he was watching, you pretended otherwise. He watched your torso stretch and your arms lift to fit a t-shirt over your body, and when it fell to your thighs, he knew it was his. You bent and shimmied to fit a pair of panties over your hips, and when you spun around to pull your hair away from your face, he exhaled heavily at the sight of your black lace-clothed ass, round and waiting.

Chest tight and jeans pulsing, Steve hurriedly stamped his cigarette out on the railing and rushed for the door. You whirled around in a fright at the latch opening, and paused as Steve pushed the door closed behind him. The stench of Marlboros overwhelmed your rose soap immediately. Your fingers twisted in the hem of his soft, faded red t-shirt over your thighs as he toed his sneakers off. He instantly became an inch shorter. He snapped the curtains shut, and in the soft glow of the lamplight, he faced you again. You swallowed as he padded toward you.

He stopped at the edge of the bed. You hadn't moved. You were a corner of a mattress apart. He could see every shaky lift and fall of your chest. You could see every flicker of his eyes, bouncing around your form. His hands twitched at his sides. His throat bobbed with a swallow. The wet sound of his tongue gliding over his lips made your hair stand to attention. On his wrist, his leather-banded watch ticked.

He didn't say a word, but you moved closer. Rounding the corner, you came to stand before him at the end of the bed. Your head tipped to accommodate his height, and his hand instantly came to cup your cheek. His palm big, his skin warm and callused, fingertips dry and moving on their own as they slipped into your hair. His thumb slid along your lips and they parted, allowing the digit to slip in and out to spread slick across your mouth. Heart pounding, you pressed a kiss to the pad of his thumb, and he tugged you closer by his hold on your face. Your head cocked, cheek rubbing against his palm with fluttering eyes.

Steve's sigh fanned across your face. His defenses crumbled, and he eagerly sought your company with the other hand against your cheek. Framing your face, he pulled you into him, chest to chest, and connected your mouths. Your eyes fluttered closed, a gasp hiccuped in your chest and caught in your throat, easing out when Steve's hands slid down to your waist.

His touch was warm and firm, but gentle. His hands roamed the shape of your curves, tracing and kneading, but never squeezing. It had been so long since he touched you like that.

Blindly, Steve whirled you toward the bed. The back of your thighs brushed the mattress, and he waved his hands wildly until the contents of your bags were strewn across the floor. With the mattress empty, he guided you back—you crawled backward on your palms until you could ease flat against the center of the bed, splayed out for him.

Steve mounted over you, bracing on his forearms, sinking down to press your pelvises together. For a moment, you just touched noses. Rubbing, grazing, breathing each other in. You scanned the expanse of his face, eager to memorize the sight of it over you as your heart thumped in your throat. Then he dipped his head, hair tickling your neck, and nuzzled his cheek against yours. Your eyes fluttered closed again, fingers finding their way through the thick mop of locks at the back of his head.

"Wanna show you," Steve murmured, sliding his mouth to the warmth of your throat. He left hot, open-mouthed kisses to the side of your neck. "Wanna show you...how much I love you."

His teeth grazed your throat, and like a magnet pull, your spine arched into a crescent up against him. You pressed into him, breasts to his chest, and his hands instantly came to press against the sides of your neck where his mouth had been.

Steve pulled back just far enough to see each other.

"Will you let me, baby?" His thumbs made gentle circles just under the hook of your jaw against your throat.

All you could do was nod, mouth hanging open like a dumb-struck puppy. But Steve didn't smirk, didn't snicker or laugh—he only bent, slow and steady, to kiss your lips. You sighed into his mouth, taking hold of his hair with both hands as he fumbled with one hand for his belt. As he struggled, you tore your hands from his soft locks and slid them down his torso, replacing his own over the cold metal buckle of his belt. His hands found the bed again on either side of your head, and he pulled back to gaze into your eyes as you slid the leather through the loop.

The zipper snicked nosily against the quiet of the room. In the room over, the television mumbled, grey static humming through the wall. The lamp on the desk behind him made Steve glow the prettiest shade of gold. You guided his jeans and boxers over his hips and across his ass in one pull, and he pulled away to finish tearing them off. Hovering on his knees over you, straddling your squished thighs, he took ahold of his t-shirt and whipped it over his head.

You instantly deflated at the sight of his naked body—lean, firm, sculpted with cut muscle. Your fingers instantly found a path to explore when he returned to his mounted position over you. He pawed at the hem of his red t-shirt over your torso, bringing it to rest over your breasts below your chin. His palm skated through the valley of your stomach and breasts, and he bit back a smile at the full-bodied shiver that made you squirm and writhe against the quilt.

Pinching his fingers around the base of his cock, Steve used the slick tip to push aside your panties and breach your pulsing cunt. You both gasped at the same time, an echoing hiccup of breath silenced by your teeth clanking together. His forehead fell into yours, hair curtained over each side of your face, and you watched his eyes crinkle and round with desperation as he sank in to the hilt.

For a while, he just rested there, stretching you out, bringing a burning sting to the apex of your thighs. But when your thighs began to shake, and your heels sought balance at the small of his spine, you whimpered into his mouth squished against yours.

"Steve," you whined.

Steve's thumbs pressed into your throat again, hands bracing either side of your neck.

"Shh," he huffed against your lips, pecking them lazily. "Not goin' anywhere. S' all yours...m' all yours."

Steve's thrusts were slow and deep, brushing the most sensitive parts of your cunt with every lazy hump. Each tilt and push of his hips had you hiccuping and gasping against his mouth, but he never went far. He was always right there, holding you, watching you fall apart—loving you.

His thumbs pressed a little harder into your throat, just enough to have your head fuzzy and your eyes blurry. It felt like you were floating, and the hum of the tv a room over, the flickering glow of the lamp on the desk, the scent of rose soap and Marlboros—it all washed away. It was only Steve. Steve above you, touching you, kissing you, loving you.

One hand left your throat to rake through your hair, a handful of fingers tugging at the strands just hard enough to make your scalp tingle and your cheeks flame. Your hands slipped from his hair to his biceps, nails piercing the firm, bulging muscle.

"St-Steve," you whined again.

"You're so good, angel, you're so good," he mumbled breathily, gazing down where your bodies were connected. "So good t' me. Fuck, you like that?"

More than anything, you liked the lazy slur of his voice when he got lost in you, enraptured by the sight of your body bared to him, the feel of your skin against his, the squeeze of your cunt around his cock. His head snapped back with another twist of his face, nose scrunched and teeth clenched. He groaned, and his thumb slipped along your pulse point to push again. You stuttered, thighs tightening around his hips, and relaxed into a spasm.

Steve's hand left your neck to slam into the mattress, scrunching the fabric of the quilt as warmth flooded between your legs. It took only a moment for his arms to start to shake, and he collapsed into the crook of your neck with a heavy sigh. Your skin sticky and slick, your bodies clung together while you rested. You played with his hair as you caught your breath, turning to press a kiss to the damp spot on his hairline just above his temple.

Tomorrow, you would call your father, and when he would ask you to come home, you'd happily decline.

♡♡

#rolly!#boxer!steve harrington #boxer!steve #steve harrington x female reader smut #steve harrington x y/n smut #steve harrington x fem!reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington #steve the babysitter #steve the hair harrington #steve stranger things #stranger things fanfic #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things #joe keery #steve harrington smut #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington series

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kiara-ish · 9 months

Text

Seoul (Teaser)[MDI!]

Pairing: Jeon Jungkook x fem!reader

Rating: 18+

Genre: roommates au, romance, angst, slice of life

Warnings: angst, reader is undermined for being from a small town/countryside, party animal jungkook, typical uni rivalry, reader is a miser, jungkook is a spender, fluff, domestic fluff, fluff everywhere, some fights and oh yes, smut :) more warnings to be updated with each part.

Summary: You never thought that you'd get that job in Seoul let alone make the decision to move there; even shockingly have a roommate! Knowing your luck and accepting your fate, you awaited a loud, obnoxious roommate with no understanding of your unfamiliarity to the city life. While some of it did come true, your life in Seoul with Jeon Jungkook turned out to be so much more than the cliche girl-meets-world dramas. It did not help that he was awfully attractive and has tattoos!

a/n: Although I am still very much working on a number of WIPs, I'll be going on indefinite writing hiatus after the completion of this series (unless I change my mind halfway). Haegeum should be out by July end or mid-August and well, as for the rest, we'll see. There will be no taglist for this fic. My time here at Tumblr as a fic writer has been filled with mixed feelings but with the plans that I have now, I'll be returning to being a nameless viewer after this series ends. Thank you everyone who supported, loved and interacted with this blog! Although this message sounds like a goodbye, it isn't one. Yet.

m.list | series nav.

Teaser under the cut.

Above you, the sky was a canvas of colours and the clouds, specs of dust on it. You watched the kids slip and fall into the puddles that the storm last night left as remnants. The streets were filled with faces that you have been seeing since the day your eyes started to see the world for what it truly was. You wondered if the mad man that loitered around the raw fish restaurant always looked as sad; then again, you barely knew how to read people, let alone a mad man.

In the pocket of your ironed, pristine suit pants was a heavy piece of paper. In quivering, intended-to-be-fancy lettering was the address of the place and the name of the person who would be staying with you. You've always heard how common and efficient 'roommates' were in Seoul from the auntie who sold seasoned corns by the beach.

Your roommate – what kind of a person were they? Your feet abruptly halted in the middle of the road and you bit your tongue in frustration. Father had told you a hundred times at least, to never, ever stop in the middle of a busy road no matter how loud your thoughts were.

He had exclaimed in fascination and pride of having seen it firsthand, "The streets in Seoul have more buses running in a minute than in a week here!"

But you couldn't contain your nerves as you took out the piece of paper from your pocket, delicately unfolding it to read the name underlined thrice — Jeon Jungkook.

Jungkook choked on the chocolate marshmallow, glaring at his friends in half hearted anger, "Why are we eating marshmallows? I thought we were here to-"

"Chill, chill. I know," Taehyung smiled while biting into another spongy treat, "Let's hear about your roommate first."

Jungkook couldn't help the small smile that lingered on his lips when he recalled the conversation he had with you when the stay was finalised. You spoke with such a nonchalant confidence that Jungkook felt undeniably intimidated on the call and only hoped that you couldn't tell.

"Well, 'dunno much," he shrugged, "only spoke on the call. She sounded very chill."

"You sure hope so. Who's gonna keep up with our wannabe playboy if not a chill person?"

Jungkook chuckled at Taehyung's words before noticing the rest of his group approaching, arms full of clinking bottles. As the night witnessed yet another of his raging parties, somewhere in his mind Jungkook couldn't help but drift again and again to the same question – what kind of person were you?

From 28th July, 2023

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jungle-angel · 2 years

Text

Restless (Bob x Reader)

Summary: After the bird strike during training, Bob’s mind keeps him up at night

You blinked your eyes open in the darkened bedroom, your eyes trailing to the empty side of the bed and up to the clock, the red digital numbers reading 2:05 AM.

Where the hell was Bob?

You tossed aside the covers and padded quietly down the halls towards Auggie’s little nursery room. You found Bob sitting with him in the rocker by the dim light of the little table lamp, the tiny little baby tucked against his bare chest under his little blue blanket that Irene, Bob’s mother, had made him as Auggie quietly sucked away on his pacifier. You couldn’t help but notice the thousand yard stare in your husband’s eyes and the glassy look they had to them, a glassiness that made him look like he would cry.

“Bob?” you whispered.

No answer.

“Bob?”

He turned towards you, your eyes meeting as his chest began to tighten. “Baby I’m sorry,” he said, his voice breaking.

“Sorry for what?”

“For what happened.”

“The bird strike?” you asked him.

Bob bit his lip and squeezed his eyes shut, the tears already beginning to run down his cheeks.

You hugged his shoulders tightly, pressing a kiss to his bicep. “Baby I understand,” you told him. “I was exactly where you are when they told me what happened.”

“I just.....I can’t,” Bob choked. “I love you both so much. I need to.....I need to be here. For you and for August.”

You were trying not to cry yourself. Next week, Bob would be heading for the Uranium Plant mission and would be gone for a week and a half. It didn’t sound like much, but you quickly realized how much you desperately needed each other.

“You’ll come back,” You told him. “I know you will.”

Bob leaned in and pressed a kiss to your lips. “I know you don’t want to hear it,” he said. “But I’m scared.”

“Me too,” you said.

*****************

You waited outside at The Hard Deck, the ocean waves crashing close to the beach and the dusky blue sky above. You held Auggie close to your chest, the newborn snuggled inside the baby blanket while the rowdier patrons inside were making as much noise as they could possibly make.

You felt your heart leap into your throat when you saw several vehicles pulling into the parking lot with Rooster’s old Bronco in the lead. As soon as everybody had parked and left the vehicles, you feared that Auggie would slip from your grasp, your arms tightening. But when you saw the smiles plastered on everyone’s faces and a familiar one amongst the group, you felt the relief wash right over you.

“Oh if it isn’t Momma and her little bird!!” Hangman cheerfully announced. “Queen, your King has returned.”

A sob escaped your throat when you saw Bob approaching, your feet bringing you to him with the space closing quickly between you both. He took your face in his hands, kissing you passionately as a few wolf whistles were heard amongst the others.

“Didn’t I tell you that you’d all come back?” you told him.

Bob was caught somewhere between laughing and crying as he held you in his arms. You could feel his hot tears in the curve of your neck and Auggie trying to push himself off your chest. He let out a loud cry as he beat at your breasts with his tiny little fists, his pink face scrunching up as he cried.

“Oh boy,” you said. “I know who he wants.”

You handed Auggie off to Bob, his hands trembling and shaking as he held the baby in his arms, holding him close to his chest as his lips brushed against the delicate little tufts of dark blonde hair. Auggie let out another little cry as his fingers wrapped around Bob’s dog tags.

“Oh baby, shhh,” Bob murmured. “It’s alright. Daddy’s home now.”

There wasn’t a dry eye in the house as everybody snapped pictures and took short little videos on their phones, especially as Bob rocked August back to sleep, his hushed murmurs of “don’t cry, Daddy’s here” and “I love you” reaching their ears like crickets.

No one wanted to leave the stretch of beach that night with Penny and Maverick opting to camp out on the beach with everybody. Tents were set up, sleeping bags were piled in and everyone soon went to sleep with the sound of the ocean crashing on the shore outside.

You unzipped the flap on the tent, moving in next to Bob who was trying to get Auggie to go back to sleep. “Sorry honey,” he said sheepishly. “He woke up while you were outside.”

“Baby it’s fine,” you told him. “He’s just excited to have you back.”

A quiet little coo came from Auggie as Bob gently rubbed his son’s little belly, trying to get him to go back to sleep so he could put him in the wicker sleeping basket close by.

“I know I was scared,” he said. “But I’m glad to be home.”

You pressed a firm kiss to his lips with Bob giving in and returning it fully. “Same here baby,” you told him.

“Would it shock you too if I told you the squad will all be civilian instructors from here on out?”

“Wait what?”

Bob nodded. “I’m not missing a thing,” he said. “I made it back three days before Auggie was born and got lucky. I’m not taking another chance like that again. I wanna be there when he starts taking his first steps and says his first word.”

“You will baby,” you said. “And you’re gonna be the best instructor Top Gun has ever seen.”

Bob kissed you again before the three of you settled in and snuggled close to each other. There was no doubt in your mind, that you would be one of the closest families that Miramar had ever seen.

#top gun maverick #robert bob floyd #bob floyd x reader #top gun short fics

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icarus-star · 3 months

Note

Hii! I love your work and I was wondering if we can get more fluffy stuff of Possum? it can be female reader or gender neutral whatever is easier for you! He’s just so adorable I can’t 😭🩷

🛸 bonfire. | possum

a/n: SHSJSJK i luv him :( ty for the req, anon!! this is LITERALLY just possum ramblin to u abt aliens.

it was a cold summer night, early august. you and possum were sitting on a log together in front of the small burning fire, simply watching the flames dance around. it was quiet. nothing but the crackling fire, crickets chirping and the occasional owls coo.

the peacefulness of the atmosphere was suddenly interrupted by none other than possum. "...you see that?" he mumbled questioningly, patting your shoulder to get your attention. he was looking up at the sky, pointing at something.

"see what?" you ask, curious to what crazy things were going through his head. he looked at you, his eyes just as big as they always were.

he sighed, pointing to something in the sky in a somewhat less patient manner. "that. the "star" up there." he replied. his finger lead your eyes to look at the star he was pointing towards, and it was.. the north star?

you furrowed your brows, giggling a bit. "mhm, what about it?" you asked with a smile, preparing to hear the insane theory that possum had decided to share tonight.

"it's not- it's not actually a star, okay? it's so big.. because really, that's where the tall whites are from. that's where they live." he says, looking back at the star.

you raise a brow, stifling a small chuckle. " 'tall whites'? " you repeat, wondering where this would end up going.

possum nodded, his soft hair bouncing lightly with him as he moved. "yeah. nordic aliens, space brothers. whatever you wanna call them. but that's where they're all from, they live up there." he explained further, smiling as he thought you understood.

you nodded softly, going along with what he was saying. just like you always did. "okay okay, what do they want from us?" you inquired, awaiting his next response. he always had so much to say about things like this, it was cute.

he shook his head a little, closing his eyes. "we don't know. but, but they're living somewhere.. underground, around the himalayas." he replied, looking back up at the sky. "it's.. because of a natural event." he added.

you nodded again, letting him know that you were following what he was saying. "why are they called 'nordic' aliens, though?" you questioned more.

possum smiled. he was happy that you were willing to listen, unlike most people he's encountered in the past. "because, they have typically nordic features. they're tall, blonde hair, blue eyes. that stuff." he responded, looking at you again.

you let out a gentle hum, letting him know that you were still listening. you scooted a little closer to him on the log. you rested your head against his shoulder, causing him to look down at you. "...do you wanna go in the tent and get sleep?" he asked, a goofy smile on his face.

you shook your head. "no, not yet." you mumbled, a little sleepy.

"wanna here about flatwoods monster?" "sounds scary." "it is. :3"

#I KNOW nordic aliens aren't from the north star i just needed a segway into talkin abt em #guys ask me how much research i did for the alien part!!#possum welcome to willits #rory culkin possum #welcome to willits #i ❤ rory culkin #rory culkin #rory culkin x reader #rory culkin smut

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e350tb · 3 months

Text

25 August

It is the 25th of August 2012.

It’s been a pretty great day for Mabel Pines. She’s started planning the big birthday party in about a week, and Candy and Grenda have been over helping out. Soos has dropped in and out every now and then to offer his input, whenever Stan hasn’t found some work for him. She thinks she’d pretty close to nailing the vibe she wants.

It’s been a super nice day too! Not too hot but perfectly sunny, with only a few fluffy white clouds in the sky. Dipper’s spent the afternoon on the roof, head in his Journal, and Wendy comes up later in the afternoon to hang out. He looks like he’s having a great day too, and that makes Mabel feel glad. She feels like they’ve all needed a stress-free day like today.

At 6pm, Candy and Grenda go home for dinner, but Soos and Wendy stay, as Stan’s in a good mood and he’s decided to (make Soos) do a barbeque. They stay out the back until well after dark, just hanging out and talking, like it was earlier in the summer before… say, where is Ford? Oh well, probably in his lab doing nerd stuff. At least he hasn’t dragged Dipper down with him.

Mabel tumbles into bed at about ten, just after filling in her scrapbook, a smile still on her face as she drifts away, waiting for another perfect day tomorrow.

---

It is the 25th of August 2012.

Dipper spends the morning watching Ghost Harassers on the TV, and then heads up to the roof to read some of Journal 1 – he hasn’t read this one as much as the other two, and he’s looking forward to seeing what new insights Ford’s written down about the strangeness of Gravity Falls.

Ford’s down in the lab today, and he hasn’t heard from him. But that’s okay. It’s been a while since he’s had a nice, low-key day like today.

Wendy comes up around three, and they hang out on the roof talking about nothing, as best friends do. They watch as the sunset begins, the trees lit a golden hue, and see from their perch as Candy and Grenda leave. When they come down, Stan tells them he’s holding a barbeque, and Wendy decides to stay over – not like there’s much at home, what with Manly Dan… somewhere or another.

Soos cooks, and they stay out until well after dark. Dipper crawls into bed just after Mabel’s finished filling in her scrapbook, but he stays up a little longer, reading under the covers, until he at last drifts off.

---

It is the 25th of August 2012.

Soos is sweeping the floor in the Mystery Shack when a woman asks him for help finding the shirts. He smiles, points her in the right direction, and returns to sweeping. He whistles to himself. Life is good.

Later, as he’s preparing the barbeque, he has a strange feeling of deja vu, but he shakes it off and prepares some pretty mean burgers. He’s so tired at the end of the night that he falls asleep in the break room - abuelita knows where he is, after all.

---

It is the 25th of August 2012.

Just after lunch break is the worst time of day for Wendy to be working, when the temperature is the warmest and the hours drag the longest. She feels like she’s been serving the same five people for over two hours, but she figures that’s probably just her mind playing tricks on her. Man, she is bored.

She checks her phone. Usually Tambry’s lighting it up about now, but Wendy guesses she’s busy face-sucking Robbie, so there’s no messages.

It’s just gone three - the customers usually thin out about now, and whatever comes through, she’s sure Soos can handle. She’s going up onto the roof. Time to slack off, she thinks.

---

It is the 25th of August 2012.

Stan hasn’t seen Ford in days… actually no, he saw him yesterday, but it feels like days. Heck knows his brother only seems to come out of the lab for minutes at a time. He really shouldn’t be bothered - if Ford wants to starve to death down there, that’s his prerogative - but Ford’s his brother, and he has to look after him.

He puts the code into the vending machine, watching as it slides aside, and walks down the steps towards the elevator. He reaches the halfway point and…

…

…what was he doing?

He rubs his head. Geez, he can’t remember. Well, he’s not going to scam any rubes standing around here. He walks back up, closing the vending machine/door behind him.

---

It is the 25th of August 2012.

He thinks he recognises the woman. She must be a repeat customer.

---

It is the 25th of August 2012.

Mabel is sitting on the floor, drawing a family portrait as a decoration for the party. Seeing as mom and dad can’t be here, she figures she’ll draw them in!

It takes her a little while to remember what they look like, though. It’s been a long summer, she’s just gotten acclimatised. She gets it eventually.

---

It is the 25th of August 2012.

Wendy stands in front of the Mystery Shack, next to one of the picnic tables. Her back is a little sore. She wonders why she’s standing here.

…because she’s walking into work, and her path takes her past this picnic table. Duh.

She walks inside. That night they have a barbeque, and she ends up falling asleep on the same picnic table.

---

It is the 25th of August 2012.

Dipper feels like he’s seen this episode of Ghost Harassers before – but he can’t have, this is a new episode.

He gets up to clear his head and sees Candy in the hallway, just next to the front door. She’s looking out the window - or at least he thinks she is. He blinks and she’s looking at him… wait, no she’s not, she’s definitely looking out…

He’s getting a migraine. He goes to the fridge for a glass of water, and Candy is gone when he gets back.

---

It is the 25th of August 2012.

Soos wakes up in the break room.

He rubs his head. How did he get here? He must have fallen asleep here yesterday, of course.

He can’t remember much about yesterday, though.

Ah well, there’s work to be done! He gets up and heads off to find his broom. Tonight he will fall asleep here again, after the barbeque.

---

It is the 25th of August 2012.

Stan’s eyes are playing tricks on him.

He’s standing next to Soos, criticising his barbeque skills, and he looks up and for a moment the starry sky is a deep, blood red. He jumps, shrieks, and then it’s gone. Probably was never there to begin with, he thinks.

He weathers the mockery that ensues as well as he can, claiming he just tripped over – while standing still, yeah – but the image stays with him until he drifts off to sleep. It’s just a trick of the eyes, but it feels real…

---

It is the 25th of August 2012.

Dipper’s about to watch Ghost Harassers, but something seems to wash over him, and he feels like he can’t stand to watch this episode again (even though he’s never watched it before.) He decides to do a bit of channel surfing instead.

Click. It’s the news, but the desk is empty, and the room is dusty and filled with cobwebs.

Click. No service.

Click. The harsh beep of the Emergency Alert System, and the works ‘please await further instructions’ on the screen. There’s a timer at the bottom, counting up - right now it’s at 6307200923 and rising every second.

Click. No service.

He gets up – he needs to tell someone about that EAS, but as he turns to walk to the kitchen, his head spins. What was he doing? That’s right, Ghost Harassers – he switches channels and starts watching, even though a subconscious part of him would rather do literally anything else.

---

It is the 25th of August 2012.

Mabel is talking to Candy and Grenda, but something seems off.

She feels like she’s had this conversation before – like she knows exactly what her friends are about to say. Maybe they’re just super in-sync, but something within her feels a little creeped out. They react to perfectly to everything she says.

She stops talking mid sentence, sitting in silence.

They sit in silence.

Tḩ̶̏ey ̴̺̈́s̴͔̕ï̷̫t̶̮̓ ̴͈̆in̵̦̑ ̴͈̏s̷̘̀í̵̢l̵̦͊ḙ̴̀n̴͓̆ç̶̾e͕̋.̷̢͑

T̴̨̺͕̣͎̹̼͔͈̦̱̪̓̔̌͐̉ḩ̶̛̺̘̹̪̫͕̺͇̥͚͈̹̫̒̎́͑̈͜e̶̖̮͂̊̽̓͆y̵̧̨̢͚̹̗͚̥̤̪̻͙̻̳͙̰̜̗̞̝͎̿̌̽͂͛̉͛͆̀̎̾̄̈́̔̍͘ ̡͇̥͉͕s̷̢̡̛̬̬̟̱̩̹͈̣̥̗͈̥̦̮͔͋͋̿̾̋̎̅̓͋̐͌̈́̾̃͜͜͝ͅḯ̴̩͎̀́̍̂̍͝t̴̡̡̥̰͉̼͕̻̰̲̗̰͚̲̭̫̐̅̒̾̽̉͌͐̊̍͌̾́͋̂͘͜͠ ̡̜̬̫͙͔̲̤̖͈̙͈̝̱͎̟̲́̀̊̿̿̈̓́̍͘ǐ̧͔̗̔̑͗͛̆͆̏͐̓̒́̃̕n̷̨̞̮̳̪̻͍̦̟͉̼͙̙̮͎̤͑̓̆͗̎͌̇́̈́̉̃͗̀̏̾̒̾̏̇̈́̓͜͜ͅ ̢̟̜̬̪̲̪͓̲͈́̒̎͋̔̚ͅs̢̢̪̜̖̩̩͇̭͈̯̋̒̄̈́̍̓̆̌͐̃̓̚͝į̷͕̻̦̟̜͖̼̲̳͇̪̖̘̌̂̈́͝ļ̷̤̯͙͎̥̫̱̘̗̪̘̘̳̬̭̬̈́̓̅̀̑̃̑̒̐̈́̄̎̿̅͂̑͐͜͝͝ȩ̷͉̭͚͔̬̹̜̺̬̱̰̙̏̈̈́́͛̾̀̽̄̋͗́̈́̋̎͑͛͆̕̕͜͠ṉ̴̡̧̱̥̩̼͈̻̞̩̖̯̣̮̘̣̥̉͒̾͋͒͜c̴̨͓̗͖͈͕̠̱̺̤̑͜ȇ̵̛̟̘̝̲̒͋̃̈̓̋͛̈́̕̕.̧̢̤͚̜͍̮̫̮̞̳̣̤̮̹̀̍̎͋͝

T̵̨̡̢̡͇͍̹͎̳͖͓͍͈̖̝̗͕͇͙͉̣̗̝̼̦͉̥̲̳͔̍̈̿̇͌̃̇̀͗̅̒͑̅̌̄̕̕͠͝ͅh̷̛̛̛̩̭͚̗́̍̀̆̾͌͂̊̚͝e̷̡̛̛̝̞̥̻̱̱͇̬̖̰̘͙̔̔̇̊̿̅̒̃̔̈́̆̈́͌͆̏̈́̔͆̈́́̾̈́͂̆́̓̑͒̿͒̆̈́͘̕͝y̵̠͈̎̀͆̊͌́̌͐͊̂̈̓̄̈́̾̊̇͝͠ ̶̖̙̫͚̙͎̰̠̲̜̪̤͗͐̍͗̅͌̋̅̀́̒̒́͐͆̈́̋̃͂́͌̔̔̽̑̉̚̕͝͝͠s̵̢̡̛̬̱̠̬͔̥̱̩̪̝̲̗̭̟̻̥̮͉̗̺͌̌͑͂̀̈̎̈͂̌̈̾̈́̾͋̌͐͂͊̎̂̇̿͒̆͆̑̽̃̄̕͘̕͝͠͝i̷̧̧̨̡͉̭͖̣̥͚̖̻̝̜͉̲̖͓͈͍̥̦̭͖͖̩̞͕̫̱̜̲̠̤̹̗̋̋̌̋̇͋̂̈́͗̍̿̈́̚̕͜͜ͅt̵̨̧̨̧̪͖͕̟͓̺̣̙̠͙͖̯̖̝̦̞̱̎̊͒͒̈́̒̀̔͗͗̈́͌̏̓͐̂̈̉̿̔̄̄͋̈́̒͑̋͘̚̚͘͜͠͝͝ ̡̡̡̨̛̭̠̜͔̯͉͕̦̳̹̣͓̰͈͔̪̬̟̼̦͓̺̫̀͊̔̄̑͝į̵̡̛̻̲̝̲̖̭̟̻̫̰͇̟̤̭̖̞͈̤͉̮̭̤̠̝͔̭̫̰̱̦̬͓͉͓̒͛͐̓͋̿͊̒̎̐̓̆̑̎͊̿͆͌͐̕n̵̡̡̧̢̛̦̺͙̬͓̻͈̭͇̰͈̫̻̝̝͕̬̬̱͖͍͎̪̮̜̞͈̯̪͂̈́́̆̔̔͑̇̄̓͊̆̚̚͜͜͠ ̷̢̢͍̻̪̲̤̯̮̼̪̲̳̜͕̳͗̄͐́͛̌͐́̓̂̂͊̔͒̈̈͐́̐̒͑̇̄͛̍̀̿̈́͑̃̒͊͘̕͘͘̚͝͝͝ş̴̛̱͍̹͙̘̙̰̝̹̜̩̰͚̳̯̥̤͔̈͒̈́̇͑̒̑̓̌̍̾́̃̉́͝͝͝ͅi̶̢̢̧̛̤͖̻̻̟̙̥͚̭̮̖̰͚͉̣͔̦̪͙̥̞̼͓̎͑̑͒̈́̑͒̂͜͠͝l̷̡̖̲͚̻̖̯̩̫͓̣̞̪͕̝̖̺̼̬̩̰̰͙͚͎̻̖̲̤͖̝̬̠̼̣̹̳͇̳̲͙͐̀̿̾̄̇̔̈́͗͋̌͂̽̐͋͋̈́̂͒̑͒́̂͌̏̔̔͆́̓̚̕͝͝ȩ̴̡͕̤̩͖̯͇͕̫̱̜̦̥̪̹͙͈͎̺͉͕̮̬̟̲͙̮̲̱̳͍͔͆̊̿̊͆͆͑͛̉͊͜͠ͅǹ̵̡̛̛̛̛̯͈͉̙̘̍̃̓͆̔̐͐͑̍̋̾̿̌̐́̊̇̒͒̀͆̃̒̓̈̽́͛̏̒̑͐̔̔̕͝ç̴̧̪͎̝̺̲͙͎͓͖̘͓̠͎̘͇̩̳̻͍̯̙̼̫̹̬̻͖̠͇͖̩̮̣͕̩͖̄͂̂̔̄̂͒̎̎̒͑́̃̇̿̈́̂́̎̍̈́͋̀̽͐͑͐̽͑͊͗̈͝͠͝͠e̴̟̣͉̠̞̹͍͓̺͖͚̤̬͔̮̻͎̳͎͉͙̥̓͂͋̇̔͋͆̍͒̾̽́̿̆́̀̃̀̽̽̂̚͜͜͠.̴̢̥̟͓͇̲̦͓͈̦̻̗̌͋͗̄̚͜

T̴̢̘̤̹̺͚͓͖̥̩̰͔̪̜̬̭͕̜͇͛͋̅̄͝͝ḩ̵̧̛̛̜̳̬̹͙̮͍͖̞̩̙̖̳̲͎̘̹̰͍̝̦̙̩̙̹̠̥̫̜̟̻̺̺̜̹̰͙̜͙̜̩̜̥͕̎̐̌̈̂̆́̂̈̒̉̇͋͌̈̉̔̓͒͐̒͌́̂̈́͗̀̈́̊̐̈́͑̇̈́̕͜͠͝͝͝͝͝͝͝ͅe̵̱̖̗͈̟̪͙̽̅̈̒̈́͗͌͒̔̋̑̿́͛̋̀y̞̼͎̆͒͊̍̑͒̿͛̓̾̾̒̉̍̕͝ ̶̧̛̜̗̣̟̟̼̲͉̝̞̳̠̘̟̭̘̖̀̈͐͌̂̊̽̓̒̅̅̒̃̏̆̎͑̈́̈̇̾̑́́̃́̄̌̃̑̇͌̉̿̚̚̕̕͘͝͝͝ͅs̷̨̖͉̗̻̭̍̓͌̑̎̄̌̓͊͐̍͐̈́͑͑̕i̶̧̧̧̡̲̠̼̤̟̲͉̣͕̼̜͔̪͇͔̮̟̭̒̅͐̎̔͑̈́̃̈́̃̐̃̔̾́̓͌̍͐́̆́̀͒̑̀̚͘͝t̶̡̧̢̨̛̛͍̣̠̥̯͓͔̪͍̝̠̤̱̖̘̥͇͙̯̝̖̖̮̹̦͔͖̙̹͚̭̹̜͍̯͖͖̼͈͐͑͋̐̓̅͒̋̽̈́̓͒̃̃̓̀̆̋̈́͌͆̀́̓̽̀͗̑̔̍͋̓̚͜͝͝͠ ̴̡̨̨̢̡̛̛̤̻͓̻̜̗͔̼̱̲̩͕̳͈͈̺͓̩̦͍̜̦̟͕̫̗̼̫͓̝͈̰̖̖̼̝̙̬̘̲̟̊̈͆̍̇̐̈́̅̈́̽̈̈́͆̕͜͝ͅį̛̥͙̺͈̯̘͚̯̮̥͙̌̅̽̀́̈̀̋̄͌͊͑̄͛̀̑̌̋͗̋̍̑̂̎̈́̅̈́́̍͘̚͜͝͝n̶̨̡̧̨̡͈̤̳̭͓͕̪͔͚̤̭͇̖̫̹͙̪̲͖̮̥̻̦̤̯̥͔͍̤̎̎̃̈́͂̊́̏͛̉̽̽́̂̊̑̐̎̂͘͜͠͝ͅ ̡́̔̓̄̅̂̈̃͌͗̈́̿̓̔̑̇̔́́͐̒̕̚̚s̴̢͚̭͙͕͍̹̻̉̉̒͊̾̄̓̀̌͋́͋̒̐̈́̅̑̎̂̆́̆͒̒́̔̐͋̊̕̕̚͝î̷̡̡̥̘̹̺͖̫̳͖̻͕̱͍̭̰̣̬̱̩̖͉̖̘̰̦̦͈̪͙̟͈͚̱̼̼̱̝̘͔̜̼̖͉́͗ͅͅͅḽ̛̹͎͕̼̗̂̒͗̓͆͌͛̈̀͋̋̆͂͑̈́̎̎̓̀̊͜͝ẽ̛̦̹̖̯͔̞͎̞̹̥̝͇̮̪̪͓̬̓͗̈́̉̒̂͆̄̌͐̾͑̽̐̾̆̓͝͝ͅn̷̨̛̲͔̝̬͙͓̭̪͚̝̩̩̜̭̭̼̟̻̼̫̯͆͂̒̒̔̋̐̈́̈́̈́͂͋͐̈́̓͋͛͒͆͛̆̌́͌̌̍̈́͐͘͘͝͠͝͝͠ç̷̧̭͎̣̦̰̭̠̩̬͖̦̭̗̹̗͕̼͕̪̦̫̱͎̇͐̾͂̈́͒͑͗͗̅̈̅͋̇̅̕͘͜͜͝͝ͅͅȩ̶̧̧̨͖̜͎̟͕̖͍̝̗͓̪̼̥͕̻̖̰̳̪̣̻͂̃̿̌̈͑̓̿͒̔̈̓͐͋͐̋͗̔̒̾́̎̈͐̈́̿̔͘.̶̛͎͓̅́̐͒̈́̀̃͐͊͗̅̾͐̓̎̽̈̌̓̎́̒̂̀͒͛́̒̽̎͒̀͠͠͝

its not them

ì̷̢̫̱̣͓̤̫̜̲͈͕̰̻̠͈̝̼̊̓̈́͛̈́̐̑̉͆̃͗́̈́̑͠ţ̵̰̘̫͎̝̘̤̭̼͍̟̆̎ŝ̞̰̂̊̉̑͗̇̂̀̇͊̀̏̈́̕͘͝͝

it is

It is the 25th of August 2012.

Mabel is talking to Candy and Grenda, and she feels a momentary sense of deja vu.

Oh well. It’s probably nothing.

She starts to draw her parents, and takes a long time to remember what they look like.

---

It is the 25th of August 2012.

Is it good? He feels like he’s missing something. Something important.

---

It is the 25th of August 2012.

Mabel enters her room and finds Waddles standing in the middle of the room. He is perfectly still. For a moment, she wonders if something is wrong.

He vibrates.

What was she thinking about? Waddles comes over for a pat, and she decides it was nothing important.

---

It is the 25th of August 2012.

Wendy feels like she hasn’t left the Mystery Shack in ages.

She supposes she hasn’t, actually, it’s been hours since her shift started, and she’s been stuck here helping customers. It’s all bleeding together. Blonde surfer guy, elderly husband and wife, black man in a knitted sweater, a couple of teenage girls…

“That’s $6.18, no refunds.” Teenagers leave, blonde surfer guy hands her a shirt.

“That’s $10, no refunds.” Blonde surfer guy leaves, sweater man hands her a few keychains.

“Those are $5.23, no refunds.” Sweater man leaves, blonde surfer guy hands her a shirt.

“That’s $10, no refunds.” Blonde surfer guy leaves, elderly couple hand her a mug.

“$15.20, no refunds.” Elderly couple leave, teenagers hand her a bag.

“$25, no refunds.” Teenagers leave, blonde surfer guy hands her a shirt.

“That’s $10, no refunds.” Blonde surfer guy leaves, sweater man hands her a few keychains…

Man, she hates work some days.

---

It is the 25th of August 2012.

Stan sits at his desk in his office, staring at the wall.

He doesn’t know how long he’s sat here – it feels like hours. He’s been deep in thought for a while, thinking about his life. He does this a lot, but today it feels different.

He can’t quite describe it, but it’s almost as if there are dark fingers over his mind’s eye, keeping him from seeing something, he can’t tell what. When he thinks of Ford, this strange feeling grows deeper. Black smudges cover his face. His voice feels distant and staticy. He blinks, and he can see his father. His face is eyeless behind his sunglasses.

He blinks again. Grenada is standing outside the door, looking in. Her face is indistinct.

He blinks again. There’s nobody there.

To heck with this. He gets up, deciding to go bother Soos.

---

It is the 25th of August 2012.

Dipper feels a strange urge to call his mother as he sits down on the roof. He reaches into his vest for his phone.

He dials her number and waits for her to answer.

Beep.

There is silence, deeper than he has ever known, drowning out the sounds of flies. Such silence that he cannot hear himself think. Endless, unfathomable silence, as if what he calls not only doesn’t exist, but has been annihilated so thoroughly that it never has.

Beep.

She must be out, he thinks, and opens up the Journal.

---

It is the 25th of August 2012.

Soos is sweeping the floor in the Mystery Shack when a woman asks him for help finding the shirts. He smiles, points her in the right direction, and returns to sweeping.

Faintly he realises that the woman has absolutely no identifying features. No eyes, no nose, no mouth, no hair, no face, no head, no body, no…

He hums a little louder as he turns back to his sweeping.

---

It is the 25th of August 2012.

Wendy looks at a photo on her phone and wonders who it is. She can’t recognise them, though she feels like the names of the people in the picture are right on the tip of her tongue.

She sits up on the little deck chair and asks Dipper if he knows. He takes a minute or two to identify them.

Manly Dan. Marcus. Kevin. Gus. Her family. Right, yeah, of course. How did she forget? It just seems like so long since she’s seen them – but she saw them yesterday…

She loses her train of thought, but in the back of her mind, the thought lingers.

---

It is the 25th of August 2012.

Mabel feels tired. That makes sense, they’ve had a big night, and she’s just sticking a last polaroid in her scrapbook before bed. She turns the page and finds that she’s filled the book.

She yawns, opening the drawer and pulling out another scrapbook. It’s always good to keep a spare. She adds the scrapbook to the growing pile under the bed. How many are there? There’s got to be at least twenty. But that doesn’t make sense, does it?

It must do. It must do.

She drifts off to sleep.

---

It is the 25th of August 2012.

Mabel doesn’t start on the portrait today. She doesn’t realise she’s long forgotten what her parents look like.

---

It is the 25th of August 2012.

Candy and Grenda leave the Mystery Shack at 6. They walk into the trees and stand perfectly, waiting for

---

It is the 25th of August 2012.

Soos is sweeping the floor in the Mystery Shack when a thing shaped like a woman

---

It is the 25th of August 2012.

Stan sees his brother - the other one, his name escapes him - screaming

---

It is the 25th of August 2012.

Dipper’s subconscious cries out at the prospect of watching Ghost Harassers again

---

It is the 25th of August

Surfer dude sweater man elderly couple teenagers “$6.18 no refunds”

---

It is the 25th

Mabel laughs with the things that aren’t Candy and Gren

---

It is

wake up

---

It is

wake up

---

It is

wake up

---

It is the 25th of August 2012.

#gravity falls #dipper pines #mabel pines #grunkle stan #soos ramirez #wendy corduroy #fanfiction #writing #time loop #time loop au #cosmic horror

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illicitlimerence-writes · 2 years

Text

a man after midnight | p. gasly

pairing: pierre gasly x reader word count: 2.7k words request: nope. prompt: ice-cold cocktails + staying up till sunrise from this prompt list. warnings: not actual smut but like allutions to it, a loooot of abba and mamma mia! references (can you guess what i watched while writing this for inspo?) really really recommend listening to 'voulez-vous' and 'gimme! gimme! gimme!' whilst reading this lolol since this was inspired by the horniest songs in mamma mia (if this does well maybe 'lay all your love on me' could be a part 2 a/n: happy september first! happy return to hogwarts! august really slipped away into a moment in time. we have one summer fic left! (yes, i know summer is almost over buuuuuut, we’re about to enter seasonal depression and i feel like we all (me) need a little more fics about sunny days at the beach. (btw, after i’m done with the summer of love event i will focus all my energy into sorting out my masterlist) also! to all my french readers or ppl whose first language is french, the last sentence won't make much sense for y'all! sorry! (i mean, maybe? kinda? but like not in the way i meant it)

my masterlist / summer of love masterlist

greece had been a dream. you’d been planning for that trip for so long, it had always been a dream of yours to visit a place with such rich history and a lot of views that seemed straight out of a movie.

the first week had been dedicated to tourists attractions, athens, santorini, and finally, mykonos.

you decided to spend the last week of your trip there to wind down from the hectic and tiresome previous days. everything was perfect, the weather, the people, the food. one thing you still had to try out were the nightclubs.

you’d been sitting in your hotel, half past twelve, watching re-runs of a tv show. you had your window opened, the summer breeze was just cold enough to make the heat bearable. you’d been exploring the city early that day, and it had left you quite exhausted. once you got enough from the show you were barely paying attention to, you stood up, walking to the window and seeing the dark of the streets out. as you looked to the side, you saw colored lights, and through the distance, heard music playing. and it was like a lightbult went on over your head, like your prayers had been answered.

why were you all alone in your hotel when you could be enjoying a night out? even if it was past midnight, you were sure that the clubs in mykonos would welcome a tourist in need of fun, and you were sure you wouldn’t be the only one there.

you wore a black dress, one that hugged your body perfectly and made your confidence go sky high. your matching black heels clicked against the cobblestone streets as you made your way to a club, neon lights illuminated the dance floor, and the music playing wasn’t like the obnoxious booming the other clubs played.

you decided to go for it, if this place wasn’t to your liking there were many more options to go instead. after going through the bouncer, you smiled in relief. it was way past 1am, but there were not too many people, most of them were girls in big groups, and the guys there seemed decent at first glance.

you approached the bar and asked for a light, fruity cocktail to get started. you smiled in thanks once the bartender handed it to you, you brought it up to your lips, wincing a little as you swallowed the ice-cold drink. it was good, though, and it brought a smile to your lips as it helped fight the heat. so far, so good.

you walked to the dance floor, keeping to your spot as you swayed to the beat. it felt nice to let loose every once in a while. you drank some more, with less than a half still on your glass. you decided to save the rest for later, wanting to avoid the hassle of returning to the bar. you wanted to focus on enjoying the night, and the people welcoming you to the dance floor.

your eyes met clear blue ones, on the other side of the club. you smiled at him, and kept dancing as you looked somewhere else. a group of girls to your right invited you to join them, you agreed, walking a few steps towards them. after a few minutes of dancing, one of them grabbed your arm and twirled you around. you laughed, feeling eyes on you once she let go of you. you looked back, seeing the same guy still looking over at you. he was talking to, who you assumed, were his friends, but every few seconds his eyes and attention drifted away from the conversation, traveling to you.

you smiled, turning your back to him. in the dark of the club, with colored neon lights, he looked hot.

you downed the rest of your drink, excusing yourself from the group and walking to the bar.

“another one, please. ice-cold, just like the last one,” you asked the bartender, who nodded and started preparing your cocktail. you turned around, leaning your back against the counter, scanning the room for nothing in particular.

“this one’s on me,” you heard, turning your head to the side, you came face to face with the guy you’d spotted minutes earlier.

“oh, it’s okay, thanks,” you said, shaking your hand.

"please, it's just a drink," he insisted, "how about an exchange?" he asked, you raised an eyebrow.

"and what would you like in return?"

"how about your name?" he lifted a corner of his lips, his answer made you chuckle.

*smooth," you nodded your head, thanking the bartender. "(y/n),"

“i’m pierre,” he said with a gleam in his eye.

“nice to meet you,” you said, standing on your tiptoes to reach his ear, so he could hear you over the loud music.

“it’s your first time here?” he asked, moving so he was in front of you, his breath hitting the skin of your ear and neck. you nodded, giving him a small smile. “what do you think?”

“it’s beautiful,” you couldn’t stop the sigh that left your lips as you thought about this place that took your breath away when you thought about it, “do you live here?” you asked.

“no, i’m here on holiday too. i’m from france,” your eyes widened, a hot french guy in greece.

“i’ve been wanting to go there as well! but since i was little it’s been a dream of mine to come here,” you bit your lip as you looked into his clear eyes. “i don’t think i want to leave,” you admitted, laughing. pierre nodded.

“i come back here every chance i get. besides home i’d say this is my favorite place,”

“i haven’t left and i already want to come back,” you sighed, closing your eyes as you took a sip from the cold drink. “it exceeded all of my expectations. the movies don’t compare to the real thing.”

“let me guess,” he started, a smile on his face, “mamma mia?” he raised his eyebrows as his expression turned playful.

“guilty,” you nodded, “it’s one of my favorites.” you bit your lip, shrugging.

“it’s a good movie,” he lifted a shoulder, smiling. “do you want to dance?”

“with you?”

“i’m a pretty good dance partner,” he smiled wide, your eyes instinctively drifting down to his lips.

“maybe some other time,” you declined politely, “i’m quite tired,”

“just one song, please?” pierre placed a hand on your arm, “you won’t regret it,”

“i don’t like this one,” you shook your head, aware that you were playing hard to get.

a lightbulb seemed to go on over his head, his eyes widened a little as a smile settled on his face.

“stay here,” he told you, and walked away, you lost sight of him once he mixed with the crowd of people dancing. you stayed there by the bar, enjoying the last of your drink. you paid for both of them, since it had been a few minutes and pierre still hadn’t returned.

you decided to go back to your hotel, stepping down the few steps leading to the bar. your head perked up once you heard a familiar song begin. the people on the dance floor recognized it as well, since they started cheering and dancing to the beat. you turned to the dj, to the guy next to him, who stared at you with a smirk on his face.

a song from ‘mamma mia!’ playing in greece. how predictable.

you laughed, shaking your head as pierre made his way to you. he offered his hand, a smirk on his face.

“you can’t tell me you don’t like this song,” he had a gorgeous shine in his eyes, that popped up against the white shirt he wore. the first three buttons were undone, letting you see a good portion of his chest, a golden chain reflecting with the lights.

“fine,” you gave in, letting him guide you to the middle of the dance floor, as you walked, grinning, you couldn’t help but think how fitting the words of the song he chose were to your situation.

now is all we get. nothing promised, no regrets.

“voulez-vous?” you heard his voice in your ear as he twirled you around, keeping your back pressed against his chest. you chuckled, feeling a chill running down your back. you decided to play along this game, moving your hips side to side, placing your hands on top of his, drifting them down your body, settling them on your waist. he held on tighter, throwing caution to the wind and placing a kiss to your neck.

you turned around, throwing your hands around his neck, fingers curling on his golden hair.

“i know what you think. ‘that girl means business so i’ll offer her a drink. looking mighty proud, i see you leave your table, pushing through the crowd,” you sang, pushing your body closer to his, as he couldn’t help but smile, aware of the accuracy of the words.

when you first landed in greece, the last thing you expected to do was dance with an attractive frenchman, who held you both delicately and posessively, who asked the dj to play a song from your favorite movie only to dance with you.

maybe it was the lights, the drinks you’d had, the suggestiveness of the song, that gave you the courage to raise to your tiptoes and place a quick kiss to his lips.

it took him by surprise, at first, but amusement filled his face as you moved your hands to grab his face, singing the next verse with your lips touching his.

“ain’t no big decision. you know what to do. la question c’est ‘voulez-vous?’,” you raised an eyebrow, almost daring him to make the next move. it felt like the rest of the club had blurred away, and it was only you and pierre, it didn’t matter that you two only met each other minutes ago.

it’s like the song said. nothing promised. no regrets.

his lips on yours felt like being lit on fire. it was hot and messy, full of need and curiosity.

just one night. one night of being careless, of losing fear and daring to step out of your comfort zone, to experience something new. something without promises, without regrets and what ifs.

“do you want to?” he translated it for you, his breathing was heavy and hard as he leaned back, one of his hands was holding the back of your head, something you missed as he kissed you.

the song encouraged you. take it now or leave it. now is all we get.

when else will you get a chance like this?

you answered by pressing your lips against his, your hand finding his as you walked back, leading him out of the club.

throwing your head back in ecstasy, a smile formed on your face as you felt pierre’s lips on your neck, placing quick kisses, combined with soft bites all over your skin. you were both breathing hard, trying to catch your breaths after three intense hours of exploring each other.

everything ached. you dropped down on top of him, your breasts pressed against his chest as exhaustion took over your body. he circled your waist with an arm, turning you over so your back now rested against the mattress and pillows.

“any regrets?” he asked, leaning his weight on his elbow as he stared at you.

“no, nothing.” you shook your head, a blissful look on your face as you bit your lip, thinking about the past few hours.

“good.” he said, leaning in to kiss your cheek. he moved back, leaving the bed. you took advantage of the view, not believing the amazing times you would’ve missed had you not agreed to go with pierre. “the sun is rising,” he said, bringing you out of your thoughts. you turned to him just in time to see him pulling his boxers up.

“no way,” you made a sound that was a mix of a gasp and a chuckle, “it’s 5:30am,” you looked down at your phone, “no wonder everything hurts,” you dropped your head down on the pillows, feeling the bed dip as pierre sat on it, you felt his face against yours a second later.

“i hurt you? you should’ve told me, i-”

“no, no,” you placed a hand on his chest, “you didn’t hurt me, it’s just… it’s been way too long since i, you know. and for so long, as well,” you reassured him, watching the way his face changed from worry to pride. “stop,” you placed a hand on his face, laughing as he grabbed it and pressed kisses all over it.

“it has been a true pleasure, honestly,” his voice somehow got lower, huskier.

“i can say the same thing,” you laughed as he dipped his head down to kiss your neck, throughout the night you’d noticed that he really liked that spot, and you were sure that the skin there was tender and most likely, red or bruised. not that you minded. the sun sneaked in through the windows of pierre’s hotel room, and you realized that was still something you hadn’t checked off your greece bucketlist. “i want to see the sunrise,” you said, your hands on pierre’s shoulders. he looked back, seeing the scenery through the window, and when he looked back at you he pressed your body against his, your legs around his waist instinctively, and carried you out to the balcony. bedsheets around you and everything. “wait,” you laughed, wrapping your arms around his neck, but he didn’t stop, he sat on the floor with you on his lap.

“ma belle wanted to see the sunrise, and that’s what we’ll do,” he smiled, proud of himself. you couldn’t hold back a grin, so you leaned your head against his shoulder, seeing the sky change colors, your head moved up and down to the beat of pierre’s steady breathing. “i had a great time last night,” he said after a few minutes of silence. your lips curled up as you lifted your head.

“me too. i mean, if it wasn’t obvious,” you chuckled, feeling heat rushing to your cheeks. “i’d never done something like this before,” you confessed.

“what?”

“a holiday hookup,” you looked at the sky, watching as it settled into a golden daylight. the sky turning its usual shade of bright blue.

“ah,” he laughed, “and what did you think?”

“i think you’ve ruined it for any other guys in the future,” you chuckled.

“well, that’s a confidence boost,” he leaned his head back against the wall, a cocky grin on his face.

“like you need it,” you joked, “i think i should get going,” you said, but made no attempts to actually get up.

“will i see you again?”

“maybe.”

“maybe?” he asked, his hand playing with the skin of your back, trailing his fingers up and down.

“i haven’t left yet and you already want to meet me again?”

“yes. today, and tomorrow, and the day after that. i liked you. and i liked… what we did all night.” was he blushing? you swore you saw a pink tint on his cheeks. “and if that’s okay with you, i’d like to use the time we have here to get to know you better.”

you were left speechless for a few seconds, but the sincerity in his voice calmed your fears.

“don’t go sharing your devotion,” you leaned forward, brushing your lips over his. “tonight. same place. midnight.”

“okay. yes, perfect.” his eyes widened a little in excitement. “i will be there.”

“good.” you nodded, “i don’t have anything planned for today,” you raised an eyebrow, hoping he’d understand what you were trying to say. the way his eyes shifted from happiness to… want told you everything.

“you’re gonna love the bathtub, i think it’s big enough to fit us both,” he declared, standing up with you in his arms, walking you to the bathroom. he tossed the bedsheets to the side once he reached the door. “voulez-vous?” he asked again, you only nodded in reply.

since that night, you couldn’t listen to the song without thinking about pierre. and your friends and family couldn’t quite decipher why you came back home speaking more french than greek.

@idkiwantchocolatee @yeolsbubbles @spideyanakin

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miss-midnightt · 4 months

Text

Sephesis Week Day 1: "We Seek it Thus"--Calm Before the Storm

The sky was overcast, clouds deep grey and swollen, threatening rain. Humidity hung heavy in the air, uncomfortable and sticky in the summer heat. A calmness filled the air. Storm season had arrived late to Banora, and now it was here.

The sound of boots on gravel broke the silence. A boy, no older than fourteen or fifteen, crested the hill. Choppy, shoulder length auburn hair, blue eyes lined with dark eyeliner, slightly smudged above the right eye, light smattering of freckles across the nose—Genesis. His attire both showcased his deliberate fashion and complete disregard for the climate; skinny jeans and leather do not mix well with Augusts in Banora.

He looked up at the sky, shrugging dismissively before pulling out a stick of his favorite apple flavored lipgloss from his pocket. Genesis lazily swiped it across his lower lip, then rubbed his lips together. The lipgloss was recapped and stowed away.

He walked slowly, not in a particular hurry to get anywhere. He cracked his knuckles (a nervous habit that he couldn’t be bothered to break) and examined his nails. The shiny maroon polish he’d painted on them one, two nights ago was slightly chipped, nails bitten to the quick (yet another nervous habit).

A light breeze started up; it prompted a rustling in the apple trees and a poorly tacked poster on the telephone pole to fly off, carried by the wind. It fluttered aloft for about fifty feet before it flew into Genesis’ face unceremoniously.

The boy grumbled, peeling it away from his face. As he was about to crumple it and toss it away, he caught a glimpse of the face on the poster.

‘The hero of Wutai has returned victorious! Join Shinra and fight alongside him!’ It read; underneath the text was a large picture of Sephiroth, in all his glory.

Genesis smiled involuntarily at the poster—or rather the boy on the poster—as he traced two fingers lightly across the image.

“We seek it thus—“ he began, before a fat raindrop landed on the poster. Genesis neatly folded the paper and tucked it away with his lipgloss.

A few more droplets fell before it began to rain in earnest. The sudden downpour surprised Genesis, who hurried his pace, arms raised to protect his hair from the rain. —-- Genesis carefully pinned the slightly crumpled poster on the wall. It fit in neatly with the many other similar posters of the famed war hero.

He smoothed it out and stepped away, nodding in approval to no one but himself. Walking over to his vintage desk, Genesis tugged at the slightly sticky drawer until it opened. He grabbed an apple lollipop and opened it, tossing the wrapper into the little wastebasket below his desk.

Genesis set to painting his nails, this time a deep purplish red. He absentmindedly crunched on the lollipop, fantasies of meeting the boy on his wall and becoming a hero taking him far, far away, to Midgar.

——

Many, many miles away, Sephiroth looked up at the grey sky. It would rain soon, he knew. Best to set up camp while it was still dry. That is what he told everyone else, and so it was done. No one questioned the hero of Wutai, Shinra’s finest, the first SOLDIER.

He hated it.

Sephiroth went through the motions—pitch tent. Survey camp. Recheck tent. It was the same every time, more or less. After a while, he had gotten used to it.

——

The boy sat in his newly pitched tent, sharpening his sword. His face was set, solemn, focused. Very adult—it did not suit Sephiroth’s round, soft cheeks or wide baby blue eyes. Not that he cared.

The sound of the other people in camp was faint in the background. Somewhere in the distance, the roll of thunder could be heard.

The movement of the whetstone paused, then stopped. Sephiroth set the sword aside as the first raindrops began to fall.

He pulled out the picture of his mother from his breast pocket, cradling it to his chest.

If only he had a wall to pin it to.

@sephesisweek

(edited because i wanted to add some stuff lmao)

Posted to AO3 here

#ffvii #final fantasy #ff7 #final fantasy vii #final fantasy 7 #ffvii crisis core #sephiroth #genesis rhapsodos #sephesis #sephgen #writing at midnight #sephesis week 2024

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revasserium · 1 year

Note

I'm so sorry I know you're in a Naruto mood, but childhood friends to lovers with Suga sounds so cute 😭

reqs are open :)

anatomy of a wish (or the thermodynamics of falling in love)

sugawara; sfw; 1,617 words

june, 2001

“tomorrow’s my birthday! u wanna come?”

the two of you are all of seven years old, with dreams too big for this world to handle, and bodies still small enough for the sky to seem like an endless place. he grins at you, jabbing a thumb into his chest, puffing it out like all his favorite superheroes. like this, he thinks, there’s no way she’ll say no! because the pretty girls never say no to the heroes in movies. and that’s just how things go.

“only if you tell me your birthday wish!" you say, grinning from ear to ear, watching as he struggles with the concept of telling someone else his birthday wish.

"ah... but momma said that if you tell someone a wish, then it won't come true!"

july, 2012

“nee, koushi… what’d you get for question 12?”

you’re splayed across his bedroom floor, cheek pressed against the workbook pages. there’s two bottles of fanta sitting in the space between your bodies, condensation beading on the frosted glass, their contents half drunk, the bubbles falling flatter with each passing second.

“it’s too damn hot in this stupid town… i wish it's just... cool down or something...” he says, lying on his back with his arms splayed out beside him, staring up at the lazy circles of the ceiling fan, doing absolutely nothing to cool down the tepid heat rising within the walls of his room.

“wishes don't come true just because you want them to, you know that right?” you flash him a lopsided grin and he feels his stomach backflip inside him.

august, 2002

“we’re supposed to hold hands when we cross the street!”

you bite your lips as suga grabs your tiny hand in his, your palms sticky with the summer heat, the road deserted except for the shadow of a few large crows, feasting on the remains of some long-dead roadkill. you crinkle your nose as he pulls you across the street to the convenience store, the both of you heaving a long sigh of relief as you step through the air-conditioned doors.

“kou-chan… you’re sweaty.” you blink down at your linked hands.

he hums loudly, pointing with this free hand at the on-sale tuna onigiri on the counter, and makes no effort to let you go.

september, 2012

“so, where’re you gonna apply?” you tap your pencil on the wooden desk, him leaning over the back of his chair to doodle in the margins of your notebook.

“hm? i dunno… probably somewhere close by…”

“are you… gonna keep on playing volleyball?”

his pencil pauses; so does yours.

“yeah. i-i think i am.”

you smile, your pencil resuming it’s rhythmic tap, tap, tap on the table. he doesn’t look up, but you can see the grin on his lips as he continues to shade in the stripes of a perfectly drawn volleyball.

“good. okay.”

october, 2004

at ten years old, sugawara koushi is certain he’s going to marry you.

“what kinda wedding dress do you think you’d wear?” he asks, the pair of you lying on the futon in your room, staring at the soft green glow of the stars pasted across your ceiling. once upon a time, you might've asked what wishes he would've made. but wishes are for children, and they won't come true if you tell them to someone anyway.

“mmm… something pretty.”

“well, duh.”

you make to kick him; he laughs, rolling out of your reach.

“i just meant that anything would look pretty on you!” he says, still laughing.

you sniff, feeling your cheeks warm with the weight of his words.

“you’re cheesy,” you say, unable to stop the smile from spreading across your lips.

“your moms says that girls like that kinda thing.”

november, 2013

“hey! how’s tokyo? ah — well, i guess i was just there last year for nationals — right… but miyagi is the same as ever. quiet… but it’s the nice kinda quiet, y’know? i — uhm… i miss you. i mean, all of us do — asahi and daichi too! but… i think i miss you the most. i know you’re busy with studies so it’s okay if you don’t call me back for a while but… i just wanted you to know that. we’re all good here, so don’t worry. ah — right. that’s it! let me know if you’re coming back for new years! it — it’d be nice to see you again. we... we can visit the shrine and make our new years wishes."

december, 2008

“we go to high school next year!”

you laugh as suga skips half a step in front of you, his breath puffing out in front of him in a great cloud of white.

“you applied to karasuno, right?”

he nods, his moon-kissed hair flopping excitedly about his ears.

“mhm! i watched their team play at nationals and — uwah, it was so cool!!! wait — you applied there too, right?”

you grin, raising an eyebrow, “hm… did i?”

suga pins you with a reproachful look, “it’s mean to play with a young boy’s tender emotions like that, y’know!”

you roll your eyes, “you’re full of shit, sugawara koushi.”

january, 2014

you meet at the foot of the stairs leading up to the shrine, the air is crystalline and clear.

“happy new years,” you both say at the exact same time.

a pregnant pause, and then, you fall into the laughter, the sweet, twinkling, midnight laughter, the warm, welcoming sunrise laughter. the laughter you both grew up surrounded by because you were always, always with each other and nothing has ever been so easy as falling back into this.

“know what you’re gonna wish for?” you ask.

suga grins, bumping you with his shoulder, “i’ve got an idea, you?”

you glance at him and bump him back.

“i’ve got an idea.”

february, 2009

“i got in! i can’t believe i actually got in! i’m going to the karasuno high!”

he waves an acceptance letter in your face, the morning air still cold enough to sting. but the sun is rising behind him and you smile at him like the first breath of spring. he freezes, something clunking clumsily inside his chest like a pair of sneakers tossed into a washing machine.

“you… you made it too, right?” he asks, cautiously, because there’s no way that you’re not going to the same high school as him, right?

you lilt your head to one side, your grin calcifying into something he’s always knew he loved in the space between his chest and his stomach.

“guess,” you say, sidestepping him on the sidewalk even as he nearly stumbles to follow after you.

“of course you did! i-it’d be stupid if you didn’t.”

he levels himself with you and you cast him sidelong glance, holding his gaze just long enough for him to doubt, to blush, to look away.

“it sure would be, huh.”

march, 2016

“so… education, huh?” you tuck a strand of hair behind you ear, the first buds of spring clinging to the winter-bare branches like beads of morning dew.

“yeah… i think i — i’d like to try. y’know… shaping young minds and all that.”

“hm…” you prop your cheek on the heel of your hand, “you’d make a wonderful teacher.”

silence. you sip at your lavender latte, him at his cappuccino.

“i… think i’d like kids… eventually someday.” he licks his lips, his entire body flushing with heat. he wonders if it’s a good idea to be having caffeine so late in the day but you laugh and he looks up and the smile on your face makes everything worth it.

“y’know… i think i do too.”

april, 2010

“if we win this next practice match, will you go out with me?”

he’s smiling, but you can see the corner of his eyes drawing down in that nervous tick of his, hear the way his voice trembles, ever so slightly.

“no.”

suga blinks, somewhere inside him, he thinks he hears the sound of his heart shattering into a million irreparable pieces.

“n…o?”

you shake your head, “i don’t want us to hinge on the outcome of a volleyball match.”

“then… what do you want us to hinge on?”

may, 2018

“hey, what do you want for your birthday this year?”

you walk down lantern-lit street, hand in hand, your faces illuminated by all the dancing matsuri lights.

“hmm… i’ll only tell you if you promise to say yes.”

you pause, you turn to face him and he turns to face you, and neither of you wonders if you say a wish aloud, whether it'll actually come true. of course it will, because you'll make it so, no matter if the wish was made on a falling star or a birthday candle or just in the spaces between two fated souls.

there’s an entire stampede of wild horses thundering across the plains of your heart and suga smiles like he knows exactly what you're feeling.

“okay… i’ll say yes. as a birthday present,” you say, biting down the feeling of the entire universe shifting around you, of time itself slowing down to watch this moment play out, of destiny tugging on the strings that had always conducted you both. one, and then the other, dancing, circling around just this moment.

suga takes a breath before he drops to one knee.

“marry me.”

june, 2012

“happy birthday!!! c’mon close your eyes and make a wish!”

you cheer as suga squeezes his eyes shut over his folded fingers, and then a second later, blows out eighteen multi-colored candles. everyone cheers around him, the entire volleyball team is there, and you'd all spent hours papering the locker-room ceiling in green plastic stars. but still, he only has eyes for you.

“cake! cake! cakeee!” hinata shouts, bouncing around as daichi rummages around the bakery bag for the plastic cake-cutting knife.

“what did you wish for?” you ask, bumping your shoulder against his, even as suga blushes, licking his lips with a sly little grin.

“can’t tell you.”

“why?”

(because i wished for you.)

“cause then, it won’t come true.”

#haikyuu!!#haikyuu x reader #sugawara x reader #suga x reader #sugwara koushi x reader #sugawara koushi x you #sugawara koushi scenario #sugawara koushi imagine #haikyuu imagine #haikyuu scenario #haikyuu fanfic #haikyuu x you #haiCUTIES #this... was hard to write; i won't lie im out of practice but im still pretty happy with how this turned out!#floofy floof floof #sugawara koushi

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forgwater · 2 years

Text

The NRC students should be bringing you offerings for your service in keeping Rook away from them

(I need a shorter title) part 3 part 2 part 1 part 4 part 5 Valentine's Day (but it's August) Valentine’s Day (and it is Valentine’s Day!)

gender neutral reader

warnings: this is not that serious, crack

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romantic

The wind is blowing softly against your skin. The sky is clear, as are your intentions of coaxing your dear, sweet boyfriend out of his hiding.

And as you press the record button on your phone, you begin:

"Day 3 of convincing my boyfriend to come out of the foliage." a small smile graces your features as you fidget slightly with your bracelet.

What ever shall you do today, that will make your plan succeed?

A sigh leaves your lips as you lower your head slightly-

WHOOSH

An arrow flies past you, entering the trunk of the tree next to you. A piece of paper attached to it.

You take hold of the fragile piece and begin reading it. 'What is it that saddens you so, mon ange?' Awww, how considerate! You only looked half sad for a slip second and he's already noticed! What a doting boyfriend!

You smile softly and address the underbrush:

"I don't really know what to do today to grab your attention away from... your extracurricular activities." you admit.

And just as you finish your sentence, your dear hunter is next to you, bringing you into a hug, then speaking:

"You don't have to do anything, mon amour." he winks. "I already have my eyes on you at all times."

Don't you have the best boyfriend in the world? It would seem you have succeeded in your plans, even though you didn't really plan anything.

platonic (great arch-nemesis)

The phone from Crowley is long gone. Yuu has finally thrown it away... into a crowd of students... while screaming 'YEET!'. Nevertheless the NRC students were very confused... especially the one that got hit with the phone... he had to go to the nurse's office. Somehow Yuu didn't get sued.

Now the prefect has a new second-hand phone, curtesy of Leona for keeping Rook as far away from him as possible. A good deal on both sides.

After setting their new phone in a safe place for recording, the prefect begins their speech:

"Day 3 of trying to hunt the school hunter." the prefect pauses for a moment. "They really just let anybody into this school, huh?"

Silent footsteps approach, but Yuu is fast enough, as they turn around to see their mortal enemy: Rook Hunt.

The man in question jerks back for a moment, eyes slightly wide, before his usual expression returns and he grins... as he brings his bow and arrow ready to fire.

'Point-blanc range, huh.' the prefect thinks. They quickly bring one of their knifes out and aim it at the hunters head.

With eyes narrowed, both of them get ready to launch their attacks when-

"Can you do this somewhere else?!" comes and annoyed growl from NRC's own lion-man.

"Oh?" Rook muses, before putting all of his attention on him. "Roi de lion! What a nice surprise!" and with that the hunter starts heading towards him, the prefect long forgotten.

"Fuck." is all Leona can say as he makes a quick beeline for wherever the hell he can. All the while Rook is following his every step.

"Hey!" the prefect protests as they, too start following the two. "We aren't finished here, Hunt!" but the hunter only glances at them, before returning his sights on a nice would-be coat.

But not before sending Yuu a triumphant smirk.

And the prefect stops dead in their tracks: "I'm coming for you! You blond bastard!" a faint "Hurry up!" could be heard from the distance, no doubt the elusive would-be coat... maybe Rook should consider a rug. No! A bed throw!

And as the prefect turns to leave they mutter in the hunters direction one last time: "I'll put your hat on a spike, I swear I will!"

bonus

Yuu and you are sitting outside of the Ramshackle. The two of you decided to have a nice, relaxing few hours drinking tea and eating some appetizers at the iron table with matching chairs in the yard.

The rust covering them has been cleaned off... for the most part.

As you glance around all you can think of is that Crowley really should've let Yuu buy those goats. They would've eaten all the overgrown grass in no time! What a cheapskate of a crow, that headmage is!

As you glance at the prefect you both nod in agreement. You should unite forces and hunt down the headmage. He deserves it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

an: lore?👀

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Masterlist

if you want to be tagged, you need only ask, also please specify what characters you are interested in reading about or if you want to be tagged in all works

taglist: @sras-is-doing-something @bucketofforks @daydreamingtv @tendous-socks

@oreochococheesecake @lycorizzz

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callumsgirl · 17 hours

Text

ONE SHOT

midnight summer

or: the first time Gale realizes that he has romantic and mostly sexual feelings for John they're still in fighter school. It just takes one summer night, laying outside in the gras, looking at the stars and Bucky telling him a story with his low, husikily voice. That's all Gale needs to allow his heart and mind to opens up for his feelings and when Bucky come closer and kiss him there is no holding back anymore.

(pre-war Buck and Bucky)

Fighterschool US Air Force, a warm midsummer night...

The week was finally over. Gale sighed in quiet exhaustion and slumped back on his elbows, the soft, lukewarm grass touching his legs and lower back. It was August and although the sun had long since disappeared over the horizon, there was still a pleasant warmth in the air and the crickets were chirping in the distance. It was still overwhelming to sit on the wing of a B-17 and watch the sunset. Watching the sky slowly turn yellow-orange and then deep pink and red was simply unforgettable. Gale loved those balmy summer evenings when they weren't flying and he had the time to sit alone on a wing - in between all the hustle and bustle of the day - and write in his leather-covered notebook and think about John and home as the sun went down.

He felt heated and the longer he sat in the grass, the more the tiredness continued to fight its way to the surface. Gale had been awake since 0500 and had had several hours of theory lessons, sports and a flying session. His muscles burned with exhaustion and the dull feeling of contentment spread through his chest as he finally leaned back completely until he lay flat on his back in the grass and closed his eyes. He could lay here forever, he thought and smiled.

Somewhere in the distance he heard the mingled voices and laughter of some guys. They were all sitting together around the campfire, telling stories. Basically, they all got on well, and yet at the end of the day it was one big tussle, like a motley family. Each of them wanted to be the best pilot - and some days it was Buck and Bucky, others it was some guys from another squadron.

"Are you awake?" John asked in a raspy voice and Gale hummed softly as he felt Bucky drop into the soft grass beside him. John was so close to him that he could feel his body heat and smell his unique scent. He took a deep breath and inhaled the heady mixture of soap, aftershave and John. Hmm, heavenly.

Gale grumbled and opened his eyes a crack when he felt John press his knee against Gale's: "Hmmm, what's up, John?"

"I miss girls...god damn I miss their soft curves...and losing myself in them. Do you ever think about girls, Buck?", Bucky murmured in a low, raspy voice, sending a shiver down Gale's arms. His heartbeat quickened and, with his eyelids still half open, he blinked and felt himself blushing. Bent in the darkness, he was glad John couldn't see his embarrassment, even if he knew John knew. He knew Gale pretty well - probably better than he knew himself. That wasn't just because of the countless hours they'd spent together in the cockpit, but also because of the time they'd spent together besides flying.

While John had always been the loud, outspoken type, Gale had tended to hold back on such topics of conversation. Talking about his bedtime stories had never occurred to him before, but John would tease a few details out of him now and again. He usually embarrassed Buck, but at the same time he felt safe with John.

Gale remembered the first lukewarm evening they had spent here at the air base and to his surprise Bucky had started talking about women, their beautiful curves and their soft lips. He had remained silent, blushing and staring at the tips of his feet and then later into the campfire, while the other blokes had talked loudly and laughed about their conquests and sex. It had made Buck uncomfortable. Partly because he wasn't the loud type and partly because he realised how much less experience he had in all these things. So much less experience than John and when later that evening, on the way back to their lodgings building, he had held him by the elbow and forced him to slow his steps, his heart had almost stopped.

Bucky's fingertips had brushed over the curve of his elbow and, slightly drunk, Bucky had grinned at him so irresistibly and curiously at the same time. His voice was hoarse and almost lost in the darkness, but Gale had heard his words perfectly.

"Why were you so quiet tonight, Cleven? Don't you like talking about women?"

Gale had swallowed hard and shaken his head gently. He felt heat flush his face again and his cheeks turn red as he murmured softly and a little hesitantly, "It's just not my way to talk about women, John. Besides, you talk enough for both of us."

"There's some truth to that," Bucky laughed and Gale smiled slightly. "But you've had girls at home, right?" he chuckled, almost tripping over his feet. Just in time, Gale wrapped an arm around John's waist and pulled him close to the side of his own body. The moment Bucky's warm, minty, slightly wiskey-scented breath brushed his cheek and he blinked at him under half-closed eyelids, Gale knew that John was slowly becoming more than just a friend to him.

When Gale hesitated and didn't answer the question directly, John pressed himself half a step closer to his body and lifted an arm to cup his palm around the back of his neck. It wasn't the first time John had come so close to him physically and yet it felt so different, more intense and somewhere more intimate than ever before. Buck swallowed hard and moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue as he looked expectantly and a little nervously into Bucky's blue eyes. He watched the corners of John's mouth twitch softly and playfully before he murmured, "Or am I completely off base and you're still a virgin, Buck?"

He widened his eyes slightly and shook his head. What, he thought angrily. Gale may have been quieter and less extroverted than John and a lot of the other blokes, but he wasn't really a prude. He just wanted sex to mean something to him.

"No," Gale mumbled and his arm, still wrapped around Bucky's hips, tensed slightly. "I've had girls at home, but I'm just not the type of guy to fuck around without a care in the world." His words spilled from his lips without another moment's thought. He sounded more biting than he had intended and then pressed his lips together. But luckily for him, John only chuckled again and moved a little closer. So close that John's lips were now brushing the shell of his ear and Gale inevitably held his breath. "Your words almost hurt me, Buck...if you weren't so damn beautiful and important to me."

"You're drunk, Bucky. Let me take you to bed." Teasingly, he'd tried to deflect the attention away from himself and thank God John had been drunk and relaxed because he'd dropped the subject and they'd walked the rest of the way quietly side by side.

Buck hesitated for a moment as he was thrown back to the present by the memory.

"Buck, do you ever think about girls?" John repeated quietly.

He blinked and frowned slightly as confusing thoughts collided in his head and he felt slightly dizzy. One of them made him pause and he thought first of Marge - his beautiful Marge. Her soft blonde hair, her delicate features and her warmth and kindness. His best friend from childhood was truly beautiful and yet, apart from her, he had hardly thought about women in the last few moments. Gale licked his lips and opened his mouth slightly to respond. But instead he pressed his lips together once more, swallowed hard and cleared his throat before trying again.

"Yeah, sometimes I think about Marge," he replied slowly.

His heart pounded in his throat and he closed his eyes again. His cheeks burned too much and he bit down hard on his lower lip to keep his next words to himself: But I'm thinking of you too, John.

"Marge," John repeated thoughtfully. "The great Marge," he added, and again his knee bumped against Gale's. The corner of Buck's mouth twitched a little and he sighed. A little louder this time and he rubbed his right palm flat across his chest. Hoping to dispel the tingling in his chest, he rubbed sometimes harder, sometimes lighter across his torso. But it didn't help. No amount of rubbing with his palm, no amount of deep breathing, no amount of sighing dispelled the urgent heat and the tingling that ran through his veins when John was near him. He'd first really noticed it when Bucky had fallen asleep next to him in bed one night last month - a little drunk and so incredibly relaxed and beautiful that Gale had stared at him half the night. It wasn't until the next morning that he'd realized what he'd done...and what it might have meant.

At first he had pushed it to the back of his mind, but then - a few days later - when the memory didn't go away - he dredged it up again and wrote a letter to Marge. She was his closest friend and the only one who had noticed in his first letter about basic training and Fighter School that there was something different and special about John Egan.

Maybe it was because of the way Gale had expressed himself a few months ago. Or maybe it was how often he talked or wrote about Bucky...or maybe Marge was just too damn smart and knew him too well.

Gale had only grinned and shaken his head wildly when Marge's letter had arrived, and even now, as it was beginning to dawn on him, her words still sounded too loud and somehow too strange in his head, and at the same time he wanted nothing more than to find out what John was all about.

"What do you think about Marge?"

Gale winced slightly as Bucky's voice snapped him out of his own thoughts and back to reality. He opened his eyes and turned his head slightly to the side to observe John's side profile. His fingertips twitched and he wished he could reach out and touch him. But he suppressed the urge and whispered instead, "That I miss her voice and the way she laughs. Do I really have to tell you what it's like to miss someone, Major?" Gale grinned slightly and this time it was he who pressed his knee lightly against John's. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the corner of Bucky's mouth twitch and the next moment he turned his head towards Gale and looked deep into his eyes.

"Did you ever imagine being more than just her friend, Gale? I mean look at her...she's beautiful." John's usually bright eyes glittered ocean blue and dark in the embracing darkness of the night, somehow promising, and Gale felt his body temperature rise.

Buck frowned and faster than he could realize it, he mumbled, "No, not really."

John laughed and the husky vibration rushed through Gale's entire body like a shiver. Then John turned his head to Buck and licked his lips with a grin. "I just don't understand you, Gale. You don't drink, you don't gamble, you don't bet. You don't even want that beautiful young woman, so what does it take to convince you?", Bucky murmured in a hoarse voice and Gale watched every movement of John's body. He leaned back in the grass now too, turning on his side and resting his head on the side of his palm. They were closer now and Gale closed his eyes momentarily as a new wave of John's scent wafted over to him.

"Currently I' dont really know what I want", he lied. "I know I should love Marge like a lover and not like just a friend, but it is what it is, Bucky."

John stared at him for a few breaths before he lifted his hand and stroked his chin. "I suspected you were deep, Cleven, but really that romantic, huh? Are you really looking for the one woman worth writing to in war?" he teased him in a low voice.

Even though the words hit him like an unexpected punch in the gut, the corners of Gale's mouth twitched and John's fingertips brushed his lower lip. They both inhaled and exhaled loudly, staring at each other...and then it was over. Still, their eyes remained locked together, and when Buck opened his mouth slightly and whispered, Bucky's heart skipped a beat in his chest. "Who says I'm dying to write to a woman? Maybe I just want to write to you, Bucky."

There was a vulnerability in his words that squeezed all the air out of Buck's lungs. His chest suddenly tightened so much that the gentle teasing of Gale's words was completely drowned out, leaving only seriousness and profundity instead. He leaned forward a little, curving his hand fully around Buck's chin now and forcing him to look gently but firmly into his eyes. Despite the darkness, John caught a glimpse of Gale's deep red cheeks and in that moment he was sure he had never seen anything more real and beautiful. "What would you write to me like that, huh?" he whispered playfully and only with the last bit of restraint did he manage not to let his thumb brush Buck's full, pink lower lip. "After all, you'll be seeing me every day for a while."

"I just want to write down everything that happens to us. I want to be able to remember everything...to remember us," Gale confessed and as he realised the meaning of his words, John's eyes widened. With his heart pounding, Gale closed his mouth again and when he tried to avert his gaze from Bucky, he shook his head almost imperceptibly.

"Don't," he whispered and Gale felt his fingertips twitch on his chin. "Why do you want to look away?" he asked quietly. "It's romantic and maybe the wrong thing to say, but you can always be honest with me, Buck. I've got you and even though you may have thought it was bullshit when I said to you a few weeks ago that I'd always catch you and be your safe haven here, I'm here for you." Without really noticing the movement, John's thumb traced the outline of Gale's lower lip and they both caught their breath. Gale clasped John's wrist with one hand, and when he expected to be pushed away, Buck hesitantly pressed closer into the touch.

"Always?", Gale asked huskily.

"Yeah, always", Bucky answered. "No matter what you need I give it to you."

Kiss me, Gale pleaded silently, blinking several times before looking back up at Bucky and into the blue waves of his eyes. "I know you'll always catch me. Bucky."

"There'll be two more planes in the sky at the end...if there's one thing I'm sure of, it'll be you and me, Buck," John whispered. "No matter what this war costs us, we'll get through it together," John promised.

"You can't really promise that," Gale mumbled hoarsely. They both knew it was an empty promise and yet it gave them both so much warmth and security, hope and confidence that everything would be all right in the end, that at that moment it almost didn't matter.

John leaned his forehead against Gale's and a few breaths passed in which they both just lay there in the grass and time seemed to stand still.

Gale was the first to clear his throat and breathed in a hoarse voice: "John?"

"Hmmm," he mumbled, slowly opening his eyes as he lifted his head slightly. Gale was lying half under him, his eyes still closed and his full, pink lips - so seductive and kissable - that John could hardly resist the urge to lean down and find out what Buck tasted like. Instead of kissing him, John memorised every detail of Gale. His unruly blond hair, the long lashes, his beautiful, seductive lips and the curve of his cheekbones and jaw.

"I just meant it," Gale whispered after a while. John frowned in confusion for a moment, not knowing exactly what Buck meant, but before he could ask, Buck whispered, "That I want to write you letters."

Buck opened his eyes, blinking, and when their eyes met again in the darkness, the air suddenly crackled between them. They were so close that Gale didn't know if it was static energy in the air or if it was their two heartbeats making the air crackle. He exhaled audibly and this time John didn't hold back. No, his thumbnail grazed Buck's jaw and traced its outline. Gale's eyes fluttered shut again and he sighed softly as John's thumb stroked his lower lip.

"What are you doing?" Gale breathed, his heartbeat skipping a beat or two as a wave of heat rippled through his body.

"I'm looking at you, Cleven," Bucky murmured, making Gale laugh. "You really are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

"Don't say that," Buck asked with a sigh. "You got all those girls..."

"What if I told you I only have them to distract me."

"Distract you from what?" muttered Gale, heart pounding.

"From wanting you," Bucky murmured, leaning his forehead against Gale's again. He stopped breathing for a few seconds, then his chest began to heave and he sucked the air in and out greedily. His fingers clutched John's wrist so tightly that he was afraid of leaving marks. So he loosened his grip and stroked from his wrist up his forearm and upper arm until Gale could bury his hand in John's neck. "Don't say things like that if you're not serious. It'll kill me."

"Then I guess it's best I tell you again...I want you, Buck. Since day one you've just been blowing my mind and hearing you talk about Marge...god you really want to torture me."

Gale opened his eyes and for the first time in his life he was sure that something was really going right. "It wasn't my intention to torture you," Gale confessed. "But I had to say something...you kept talking about all the girls."

"I know..." John sighed, again tracing the curve of Gale's lower lip. Their eyes still held onto each other and as their breaths both mingled, Bucky mumbled, "I'm sorry."

"It's okay...," Gale breathed, leaning further into the gentle touch of Bucky's thumb on his lips, "I'm sorry.

"Is that really what you want?" Bucky murmured softly and Gale nodded slightly before he even realised it.

"You said you'd give me anything I wanted...and I want you."

Bucky's grinned and lowered his lips to Gale's. At first their kiss was slow and uncertain, then it became more aroused and curious until John leaned fully over Gale and pressed his hips against his. They were both breathing heavily and when a dark moan escaped Bucky, Gale intensified their kiss and licked John's lips with his tongue. He begged for entrance and as John's mouth opened, their tongues began an erotic dance that fuelled them both.

While Gale buried one hand in Bucky's soft brown curls, he placed the other on the spot between his neck and collarbone. John's pulse raced under his fingers and when their kiss ended, they were both breathless and completely aroused. The air crackled with the tension between them and when John pressed another brief kiss to Gale's lips, he smiled. "So that's it now...", Buck murmured in a husky voice. "We're doing this together now?"

"Yeah, you're not getting rid of me any time soon."

Hey FELLAS ❤️

I felt the need to write another one shot about our two Majors. I've been thinking a lot about the pre-war time when Buck and Bucky where still in fighter school and that back in the States everything started. Back in fighter school they both of them realizes that there is a invisible bound between of them and it's more than friendship or camaraderie. It's deeper and I wanted to write something about the first time they kiss and touch each other. Explore new desires and feelings, and I could just scream because I really love them! 🫢

Enjoy this one and please LMK what you're thinking! I love to read your comments! ❤️

xoxo callumsgirl

#masters of the air #mota fic #mota #gale cleven #buck x bucky #john bucky egan #john egan #callum turner #let’s talk mota #mota fanfic #austin butler major gale buck cleven #callum turner major john egan #major cleven #major john egan #pre war

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thefoulbeast · 2 years

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hello, i could not get the idea out of my head... also trying out smth funky with lighting haha

comic accompanied by a drabble under the cut (warning for canon-typical violence):

Stanislav walks out into the steppe, past the loose threshold of the town. The air is different here, less dense - it buzzes with grasshopper songs. A lazy white butterfly blinks its wings atop a cornflower as he steps past, a watchful eye of the steppe.

He's been spending more and more time here this summer, kneeling in the long grass with a satchel and a pharmacognosy textbook both in his hands, learning the plants of the steppan summer.

Of course, the truly endemic, unique plants like the twyre, the white-whip, swevery - those he can only learn from Isidor - but the rest are something he can memorise himself, comparing botanical illustrations to the real life plants he encounters.

He steps out further, further from town. The air smells herbal like bloom, like cut grass, like pollen. Not the sick-dizzy haze of August and September, but something milder and more pleasant, like an infusion as opposed to a tincture.

Stanislav keeps his feet careful, treading through a once-walked path left by someone else, doing his best to not trample the grasses. He halts and watches a spindly-legged spider crawl across his way, its body sluggish under the weight of the egg-sack it carries.

A dozen metres more, and he pauses to pinch and pluck a fatty camomile that sways in the light breeze. He's gotten better at that too - used to be that when he went to pick a flower, he'd lift it from the ground like pulling out something stuck, uprooting the plant and disturbing the dirt around it. But now he knows how each stem works - which ones to twist, which ones to swirl, which ones to pinch bluntly and which need the edge of a nail to be coaxed free.

The feathery leaves of the camomile tickle his palm as he rolls the stem betweeh his fingers when righting himself. He looks out across the plains - a modest warm grassland stretching as far as the horizon, perfectly undisturbed - except - there he is.

Stanislav keeps his gaze on the off-white linen of the sitting figure's shirt like a beacon. He draws closer almost magnetically - his strides seem to propel him faster than usual, as if the ground was carrying him on a stream.

"There you are!" he calls out once close enough he knows to be heard. "I've been looking all over for you! Master is quite disappointed with your disappearance, Cub."

Artemy's head turns slow, his face relaxed with a pleasant smile. Something his eyes shimmers under the blue and bright of the sparsely cloudy sky.

There is a wreath on his head - long grass, cornflower, clover and knapweed and daisy. Not thick to a point of show-off - modest and pretty, gracefully neutral. The grass ears stick out of the crown like spokes of a wheel. The curls of his hair stick out around it, bleached blonde in the summertime sun.

The sight alone is enough to twist something in Stanislav’s heart. Artemy's always been charming to the point of flustering without much trying.

Oh, how Stanislav has missed him.

(Wait - missed? Had he gone somewhere?)

There's another, unfinished, half-braided wreath in his lap. Artemy breaks his eye contact with Stanislav to wind the stem of a grass that ends with an ear around the wreath, tucking it through the rest of the leaves and blossoms carefully. It’s long enough to appear almost done.

"Practising making wreaths? What for?" Stanislav asks, because he has nothing else to say as he lowers himself into a careful kneel in the grass, an arm's length from where Artemy sits cross-legged.

Artemy looks at him again, eyes smiling as he pulls a roll of thread from his pocket without looking. A white silk thread - the one they use for sutures.

(Surely, Stanislav had gone over inventory before he left. He hadn't noticed anything missing or unaccounted for. What a clever Cub.)

"This one's for you," Artemy answers eventually, "figured that something pretty was the least I could do. I practised on myself -" he pokes at the wreath on his own head and it wobbles precariously, not sitting quite straight, "- and it's harder than I remember, you know. The brides make it look effortless, but I don't have the same feel for what flower or grass goes next. I'm just thinking - nothing feels more like my Stas than nettles and thistles,” he laughs here, light and warm, “but I can't make a crown out of those; it would itch too much."

Stanislav listens to him speak and tries not to close his eyes, despite the way the words soothe something long-aching in him. As if, were his attention to slacken, Artemy would disappear again.

(Again?)

Artemy loops the thread tight around the ends of the wreath, closing it. Ties it shut with four clean surgical knots, fingers clever between the loops. He holds up the newly finished wreath with a proud huff, smiling crookedly. Then looks at Stanislav again, mirthful.

"Come, lean in, I want to see if it fits," Artemy says as he leans closer, crown held in both hands.

And Stanislav knows in the second that the crown touches his head, when he feels the tips of Artemy's fingers on his head and finds them cold.

(Cub’s hands were never cold.)

“Oh, look at you now! It fits,” Artemy smiles, bright as the sun in the sky, almost translucent with how stunning he is, “Aren’t you such a handsome thing, Stakh?”

He can't quite control the way his expression crumples while Artemy fiddles with the wreath, straightening out the way it sits on Stanislav's head with the thoughtful little pout that is just so intrinsically Cub that it almost hurts.

"Stas? What's wrong?" Artemy asks, his pleased smile melting down to worry when Stanislav doesn’t say anything. "...Do you not like it?" he bites his lip, almost childish in worry.

It's not that, it isn't. Stanislav wishes, more than anything, to have this wreath on his head and Artemy sat right next to him. Wants to be out in the steppe with him, long hours under the sun, picking herbs together and ribbing one another.

And that's the problem.

"You're not really here," Stanislav says after too long a pause, "I'm dreaming, aren't I?"

"Yes," Artemy says, relaxing again, but there’s a sadness in his eyes despite the smiling curve of his lips, "and isn't it such a beautiful dream?"

"I wish it wasn't," Stanislav mumbles, digging short blunt nails into the topsoil, “I wish it was ugly.”

The sun doesn’t dim, the sky doesn’t suddenly become overcast. It smells like summer, smells like home. The grasshoppers continue singing, the cutting ssst-ssst softening the growing quiet. Far off, one of the cows from the nearest herd bellows.

Artemy watches him, still smiling with pity, but he doesn’t try to say anything.

Stanislav grinds his teeth together. The wreath feels heavy on his head. Artemy should have made it from thistle and nettle instead, the pretty flowers and rich grass burns him with the care they’ve been weaved with.

“I wish it was a bad dream,” Stanislav whispers, “maybe then I’d miss you less.”

“No, Stas,” Artemy murmurs, spreads out his hands and drags his fingers through the plants around him - they shush softly against his fingertips - “It’s the other way around. A bad dream won’t make it hurt less - hurting more will make the dream good.”

That makes it worse; his temper flares.

Stanislav lunges forwards, the wreath falling off his head with the movement. He’s on Artemy in a second.

Artemy, who doesn’t struggle, who lets Stanislav wrap his hands around his throat.

“Then I’ll make it worse myself,” he growls, fingers digging in.

Artemy still looks handsome as his face turns red and blood vessels pop in his eyes, bleeding into the sclera. Artemy, who closes his eyes to tears flowing down sun-kissed cheeks. Artemy, who doesn’t struggle until the very end.

He wakes up like a candle snuffed. The sky is rosy-pink, a sliver of sun just visible over the town outline, and he is cold with sweat, sleeping clothes askew and mind wild, blanket kicked off the mattress and bedding pulled out from the careful tuck beneath the mattress.

Stanislav's heart clenches. Another day on his own. Another day in which Artemy is not coming home.

This dream won’t stop haunting him.

Sometimes he sits with Artemy. Sometimes they sing. Sometimes he has a knife and he guts Cub, and sometimes Artemy guts him in turn, claw-shaped scalpel slitting him open like warm butter from groin to throat. Always out in the steppe, among the blooming flowers - bright and off season, and beautiful. Always a sunny, pleasant day.

Always only a dream

He turns on his side, towards the wall, tucking his knees up high and curling into a tight ball as he swallows down the sob at the back of his throat.

It is summer, and the whole room smells like steppan grasses.

#art stuff #the written words #pathologic #patho #stanislav rubin #artemy burakh

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druidgroves · 3 months

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Chapter 01: Maybe I'll Say Maybe

Fandom: Fallout 4 Words: 6,208 Characters: Georgia Tate (Canon Divergent Sole Survivor), Nate Notes: Soooo I decided to rewrite the first chapter (01/20/2024) since it was originally written years before I started BLP proper. I'll still keep the old one linked somewhere for posterity, but going forward the story will start referencing more things from Georgia's life pre-war. Please let me know what you think! read on ao3 / read on tumblr

August 28th, 2075

Georgia Walker checks her watch for the ninth time in as many minutes.

It’s been over an hour, she thinks not for the first time, where the hell are you?

Beside her, sitting at one of the desks that didn’t even reach her knees, is Henry Tate, number twenty-three in her classroom. Henry had been working on a coloring book she’d slipped him while she had dealt with a truly inane series of phone calls (call home. Reach housekeeper? Learn Mrs. Tate is at the salon. Wait. Answer call from housekeeper, get details on pick-up. Uncle arriving ???). He didn’t seem worried about staying later than the other kids.

Maybe Georgia should talk with his first grade teacher, see if this was a pattern she should expect…

“Let me guess: alien giraffe?” she asks when he sets down his crayon.

“No,” he says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world and to him, it is. “He’s a sick giraffe. He’s green.”

Georgia smiles a little to herself and gently smacks her forehead. “Psht, of course he’s sick, silly me. What’s his outlook, doc?”

Henry got that same look on his face that he and the other kids who still needed extra help with their four-letter words shared. Still, she’d read it was good to use an expanded vocabulary with kids. Made them more curious.

She laughs. “Is he gonna get better?”

“I dunno. I don’t think he can get better by himself,” he says.

“Well, maybe you can color him a friend to help him out,” Georgia says as she stands up from her chair and checks her watch for the tenth time. She sighs and puts on a cheery voice, “Hey, kiddo, sit tight, I’m gonna try to give Mom another call, alright? Give me juuust a second and I’ll be right back.”

“Okay, Miss Georgia,” Henry says, barely paying attention to her now as he attempts to find the perfect friend for his green giraffe. She can’t help but ruffle his hair a little before she leaves.

She steps out of her classroom, careful not to bend the decorations she spent all summer making. Her door is covered in all the recycled newspapers she scrounged from the people in her apartment building, painted in varying shades of green. Pasted on top of them were individually cut sunflowers with her student’s names written in neat, bubbly print in the middle. Amongst the flowers are the words “Young Minds Bloom In Ms. Walker’s Classroom!” in white paint.

As she walks past her bulletin board, the real star of the show in her opinion, she feels a little pride go through her. “Blooming Great Work!” scrawled across the sky of an entire paper vegetable garden, squeezed onto a four by eight foot sheet of compressed wood pulp. A tiny pumpkin patch in the corner, tomatoes on the vine, corn in the stalk, all crafted from more recycled newspapers. The real part she was proud of, the one no one had commented on or even noticed, was the fact that she was able to find enough papers without sensationalized political headlines.

War dominated everything from the newspapers to the television to the cereal half her students ate for breakfast (sending your kids to school hyped up on Sugar Bombs? Great plan). Most of them had a father, an older brother, or an uncle in the military, the marines, or the air force. It had become such a permeable part of the fabric of their lives, starting way before they were even a twinkle in their parent’s eyes. On the first day of school, at least three had said that their daddy/brother/uncle died in The War. Kids overshared their big feelings. Georgia knew to expect that. So the very least she could do is try to take their minds off of it in any small way she could. That included keeping it out of her classroom of seven to eight year olds when it wasn’t necessary.

As she walked past the counselor’s office, she wondered just how many big feelings passed through their door on the daily. Not many schools in Boston still had counselors on payroll anymore. Frankly, Georgia was surprised they still had the teachers on the payroll with how many slashes there had been to the national education budget in recent years. Dollar bills for pencils, textbooks, and backpacks spent on bullets, tanks, and warheads. It had almost been enough for her to give up on her degree in her junior year of college, but she pushed through if only to make taking out those damnable student loans somewhat worth it.

All that was to say, that whoever was going to be picking up Henry Tate, they may have gotten stuck behind a military blockade somewhere in the city. It happened. Didn’t make it any less frustrating to deal with.

Georgia rounds the corner of the second grade hallway and runs straight into a cloud of minty smelling smoke. She coughs, not expecting her senses to be assaulted like that in a primary school, and waves it away as she realizes who brought it in with them.

A man with tousled brown hair, broad shouldered and lean, a cigarette between his scarred lips, stares at the trophy case in front of the main office.

“‘Most Patriotic’, eh?” he says aloud like he’d been waiting for her to appear so he could make his snappy quip. “How do they even measure that in kids? I doubt any of them can say the national anthem all the way through at this age.”

“You’d be surprised,” she says before she can think, remembering the first day of school when little Henry Tate himself managed to get through the entire thing, only stumbling over the word indivisible. “By the way, you shouldn’t smoke inside a school, sir.”

The man laughs and finally looks in her direction. She doesn’t miss the way his eyes give her a quick once over.

“Why’s that? Fire hazard?” he asks.

“Among other things,” she replies. “They say smokin’ is bad for your health. I read it in Massachusetts Surgical Journal.”

“A bunch of boring brainy types would say that,” he shrugs, but snubs his cigarette out on the heel of his boot anyways and slips it back into the carton in his shirt pocket. “No offense if you’re one of those brainy types, by the way.”

A laugh sneaks past Georgia’s lips. She’s been known to indulge in a smoke or two during her breaks. “No offense taken, but I might offend you by askin’…you wouldn’t happen to be here to pick up a child, would you?”

“I am, actually,” he confirms. “Sister-in-law sent me to pick him up. Henry Tate. You know him?”

“I happen to be his teacher. I came to make another call, but he’s back in the classroom working on a friend for a green giraffe. A sick giraffe, mind you,” she says seriously, wagging a finger at him and making him chuckle. She smiles. “I’ll show you the way.”

“Be my guest,” he replies, and follows after her.

Before they can even walk through the door, Henry is rushing his uncle like a linebacker. His uncle manages to swoop him up before he can run smack into his shins, making him scream with laughter.

“Uncle Nate! Uncle Nate!” he cries.

“Yep, that’s me, kiddo,” he says and puts Henry down. “Mom was too busy to pick you up—” Georgia catches the look he throws at her just in time that says all she needed to know about his opinion of the woman. “So you get me instead. Sorry to disappoint.”

“You’re not a dis’pointment,” Henry says with a toothy grin. Then, like he remembers Georgia standing not three feet away from them, excitedly shouts, “Wait, wait, Uncle Nate! This is my teacher, Miss Georgia. She’s really nice. I like her.”

“Well, that’s nice to hear,” Georgia laughs as he wraps his arms around her legs in a quick hug. She gives him a pat on the back, then takes Nate’s hand when he offers it to shake.

“From what I hear, he doesn’t stop talking about school, you especially,” he says. He rests an arm against the wall of cubbies nearest the door, running a hand through his hair as he talks. Georgia feels a little warmth pool in her face when she catches herself staring for a second longer than is polite.

“Well, that’s nice to hear as well,” she says after clearing her throat.

Then he winks at her, a split-second thing that makes her blush for real this time as he tells Henry, “Hey, little man. Why don’t you go get your stuff together and then we’ll swing by the Red Rocket and get us some sodas, okay? I wanna talk to your teacher for a second.”

At the promise of soda, Henry darts off with a cheer to gather his things. Nate then turns to Georgia, warm brown eyes giving her another quick once over. She shivers.

“So, is it Miss or Miz?” he asks, nodding towards the door to the classroom. “I wanna know before I make an ass of myself.”

She tries to keep her laugh quiet, putting a hand over her mouth but failing to contain her volume. Her cheeks feel hot already.

“It’s, uh, Miss. Miss Walker. M-I-S-S,” she clarifies, face growing redder by the second.

“Good to know, Miss Walker. But where’s that accent from? Down south? You sound too soft to be from here,” he continues, fiddling with the carton in his shirt pocket.

“Arkansas,” she nods, reaching up to nervously fidget with one of the curls resting on her shoulder. “Grew up outside of Little Rock, moved here for college and decided to stay. You?”

“Boston born and raised,” Nate says with pride. “Nice to know you’re not from around here.”

Georgia raises an eyebrow at him. “And why’s that?”

“Means I can show you somewhere neat on our date,” he replies with a crooked grin, her heart fluttering.

“Date?” Georgia repeats, almost sure she didn’t hear him correctly. She flounders like a fish out of water.

“If you want,” Nate concedes, holding up his hands but his grin never faltering. “C’mon, let me show you somewhere nice. Somewhere you’ve never been before.”

She tries to compose herself, giving him an amused but disbelieving look and crossing her arms. “And what if I have been there? What then?”

Nate snorts, dismissive. “Trust me. You’ve never been there before. So what do you say? One date and then I’ll leave you alone.”

Georgia considers his offer. In half a second she manages to justify either answer. On one hand, she has rules when it comes to dating, not to mention dating a family member of one of her students. It came with its own host of issues from a potential breakup ruining her classroom dynamic or even getting fired. On the other hand…She gives him her own quick once over.

He’s like a goddamn calendar man, all toned muscles in a white t-shirt and charmingly tousled hair. And that scar on his lip? All that was missing was some oil and the washboard abs he undoubtedly had under the shirt. Georgia remembers to breathe again after pushing the train of thought away. The pros quickly begin to outweigh the cons. She’d sooner stick herself with a pair of safety scissors than say no to him.

“Pick me up at six and it’s a date.”

-----

In hindsight, stabbing herself with safety scissors that afternoon might have saved Georgia no small amount of grief.

By her own account, their first date had gone well. Really well if their winnings from hustling his friends at pool in a veteran’s bar was anything to go by. That night she had learned Nathan “Nate” Tate had recently finished up his eight year commitment to the military, but now he was working in a Corvega factory his uncle owned. It was one of the many around the Boston area that had switched from producing its titular cars to jeeps and tanks in an effort to cash in on the war effort. He had his own sweet Corvega Blitz that he picked her up in, shiny and red as her lipstick.

Nate had oozed charm that night, enough to get her into his backseat on that first date, and the second one, and the third one, too. She’d become so enamored with him so fast that her mother had demanded she fly up and meet the man after a single phone call. She dragged her father along, too. Nate impressed them with flying colors. Her mother, albeit a little hesitantly, admitted she could understand her daughter’s feelings. Her father had clapped him on the shoulder and told him he was a solid man.

They were married within the next three months.

“And you’re absolutely sure you want to go through with this?”

“For the hundredth time, yes, Mama,” Georgia huffs, looking at her mother over her shoulder. “Besides, as you and Daddy keep remindin’ me, this weddin’ wasn’t exactly cheap. I don’t see the sense in backin’ out now.”

Georgia’s mother sighs and purses her lips as she finishes buttoning up the back of her dress. It was a simple thing, not much flair save for bits of lace and a tight sweetheart neckline her cousin said enhanced her “natural features” when the women in her family went wedding dress shopping with her. Her mother wears a blush pink dress with an empire waist and a knee-length skirt; she’d tried talking Georgia into a different color palette, but eventually acquiesced to her demands when it became clear she was indeed her mother’s daughter, headstrong and stubborn.

“A hundred percent sure?” she asks again. Georgia replies with a similar pursed expression. “Just makin’ sure, just makin’ sure…Is it such a crime for a mother to want her only daughter to be happy?”

“Mama, I am happy,” Georgia insists. She sighs then takes a deep breath, trying to calm herself. “I am perfectly happy with Nate. Last night I talked him into us gettin’ a dog when we find a house.”

Her mother all but throws her hands up in the air, exasperated.

“Hell, honey, if a dog is all it takes for you to be happy, I don’t see why we have to go through with all of this,” she says. “I mean really, Georgia, six months? Half the people out there think it’s a damn shotgun weddin’ for God’s sake.”

“Mama!”

“Well, it’s the truth! You’re not pregnant, are you?”

“What? No!” Georgia sighs again and refrains from playing with her neatly styled hair no matter how much she wants to fidget around. Instead, she takes one of her mother’s hands into her own and squeezes.

“I’m not pregnant—yet,” she tells her. “We’ve talked about kids. A dog is the first step, sorta. But I promise you, I’m happy with him. Ecstatic, even. Everyone outside? They can think what they want, I don’t care. I love Nate and he loves me. Isn’t that all anyone can ask for?”

She can tell her mother is biting her tongue. Instead of arguing, Georgia is pulled into a tight hug.

“Love and an expensive reception,” she says, then checks the clock on the vanity. “Almost time, hun. Let’s go.”

-----

May 1st, 2076

When Nate picks her up after work, Georgia just about makes it to the car before she starts tearing up.

“What’s wrong? Why are you crying?” he asks when she collapses into the passenger seat beside him.

“My decorations!” she sobs.

Nate gives her a sideways look as he pulls out of the school parking lot. “What about ‘em?”

“They ruined them!”

“Who’s ‘them?’”

Georgia wants to scream. Instead, she lets her nails dig into the leather of her seat and heaves a sigh. She hates crying.

“Remember those two teachers I told you about? The ones who kept makin’ snippy comments about my bulletin board?” she asks, trying to jog his memory. They always had something to say whenever they walked past her classroom. Something was always either out of place or over the top for them. For a while she had blamed it on them being bitter and uncreative, but today had been the last straw.

“Oh, yeah, them. So they ruined your bulletin board?”

“They didn’t just ruin it, they–I-I walked into the school this mornin’ and, and everything was a mess. They destroyed everything I worked so fuckin’ hard on!” she manages to get out between sobs, punching the glovebox in frustration.

It was the beginning of the last month of school and she had gone all out with her new decorations. She’d spent weeks on them in between house hunting with Nate. She’d sat at his kitchen counter cutting out buckets, shovels, and beach balls out of more newspaper, creating an entire beach scene for the wall outside her classroom with the words “We ‘Shore’ Are Ready For Summer!” above them. She stayed two hours late just to put them up, and even took a cab home so Nate wouldn’t have to wait on her.

When she walked in that morning, all of it was either ripped, crumpled, or on the ground. She hadn’t cried then, but when one of those teachers walked by and commented “Oh, too bad. Guess you’ll just have to settle for some more lowkey decorations, huh?” she nearly lost it. Instead, she had managed to hold her head high, salvage what she could, and resolve to put it up again when she had the time and the super glue.

“Well,” Nate says, eyes never leaving the road, “fuck them, right? Probably just a couple of jealous old hags.”

Georgia sniffs, not quite wanting to agree but not quite disagreeing either.

“Probably just jealous,” she says, wiping away the rest of her tears and checking her face in the sun visor. Streaks of mascara and eyeliner trail down her cheeks so she does her best to wipe it off, but her eyes are still red.

“In better news,” Nate starts, finally looking over at her during a red light, “I may have found our future house.”

“Really?” Georgia asks, snapping her head over to look at him. Suddenly her problems are miles away. “Where? How? When did you find it? When can we see it?”

“In about a month,” he replies and takes a turn he doesn’t usually take on the drive home.

“A month? Where are we going?”

“You’ll see. Just sit tight and look pretty, alright?”

They drive all the way out to Concord, stopping only to grab a couple of sodas at a Red Rocket before Nate is driving them over a bridge into a housing development. A temporary sign in block letters reads SANCTUARY HILLS, with thirteen prefabricated homes in different states of completion. They were all either yellow or blue, some with covered carports and some without. Only one home stands in its entirety near the entrance to the neighborhood and Nate parks the car in front of it.

“Is this it?” Georgia asks excitedly as she gets out of the car and onto the sidewalk.

“Not this one, but close,” Nate replies as he joins her, then nods further up the road, “ours will be over there.”

She turns on her heel to him, eyes wide. “‘Ours?’”

Nate only gives her a sly smile in return.

“You cannot be serious right now,” Georgia says but he just keeps on smiling down at her. “Do not play with me, Nathan.”

He opens the passenger door to the car and rifles around in the glovebox for a moment, coming back out with folded papers. He barely has them in front of her before she’s snatching them out of his hands, reading them over. She looks back up at him incredulously.

“Nathan Charles Tate!” she all but shouts, making him jump. “What was goin’ through your head?! Are you crazy? Why would you make this decision without me?”

“Relax a little, would you? Plots were going fast, it was in our price range, and we can move in in a month,” he tries to tell her but she can’t keep her upset from showing. “It was now or never.”

They had been looking for somewhere to settle down since before they got married and with the housing market as terrible as it was…Maybe this was a boon falling into their laps. Maybe she was still stressed from school and taking it out on him. That wasn’t fair. Georgia sighs and hands the papers back to him.

“I just…I would’ve liked to be in the loop, y’know,” she frowns.

“I would’ve told you sooner, but you’ve been busy with school stuff. I only signed the papers today. If you’re really pissed, I can try walking back the contract, but—”

“Okay, now I know you’re definitely crazy in the head. That’d be more pain than it’s worth,” Georgia says, a small part of her beginning to think about how they’d like to decorate their first house. The idea is starting to grow on her.

“So you’re not upset?”

“Oh, no, I’m furious. But I think that can be fixed if you tell me you at least signed off on a blue one,” she says and he gives her that crooked smile that still makes her chest flutter.

“All blue for you, baby,” he says, and a little smile of her own works its way onto her face.

With that, she wraps him in a hug, burying her face in his chest. He smells like sandalwood and smoke and is warm to the touch. His arms around her and his face in her hair is comforting in the best way. He kisses her on the forehead and lifts her up by the chin, something unknowable ruminating in his mind if she judges his expression right.

“So…” he starts, “I’ve been thinking.”

“Better watch out,” she jokes and he tweaks her nose for it, making her giggle.

“Seriously, just listen. I’ve been thinking about this while we’ve been house hunting,” he says, and she gives him all of her undivided attention, “and I think you should quit your job.”

Georgia’s pleased expression drops, her eyebrows furrowed as she squints at him in the fading sunlight. Streetlamps lining the road flicker on, one after the other.

“Excuse me?” He can’t be serious.

“Let me finish before you get pissed at me again,” Nate starts, releasing her from his hug to raise his hands in defense. “Look, we have a house now. Or we will soon and you’ve been complaining about that damn school for months—”

“So you want me to quit my job right as we’re taking on a bunch of new bills? Nate, I can’t, that’s crazy!” She has to put her foot down here. Yes, her coworkers were mean, yes, the pay was shit, and yes, being the sole caretaker of twenty-eight kids for eight hours a day was perhaps the tiniest bit stressful. But it was all nothing she couldn’t handle in the long run, and she hasn’t even finished her first year.

“Listen,” Nate says again, putting his hands on her shoulders. “I got a promotion today at work. I’m off the factory floor and in the office making more than enough, plus all of my military benefits.”

“Wait, you got a promotion today? You should have led with that,” Georgia says, crossing her arms.

“I wanted to, but you started crying the second you got into the car.”

She bites her lip and concedes to his point. She hadn’t even given him a chance.

“Think about it: you, at home, putting all your creative genius into some interior decorating. Doesn’t that sound more fun than making flimsy paper decorations only for some old bat to tear them down?” Nate asks her. “And hey, we can finally get that dog you’ve been talking about.”

She’s gone through a whirlwind of emotions within the last ten minutes and Georgia can’t clear her head of them while she’s still looking into his pleading eyes. He’s thrown so much information at her, but she can just about make out the specs of gold among the brown and in that instant she knows he has her just where he wants her. The more she thinks about it, the more she pictures them picking out new furniture, walking the dog around the neighborhood, cookouts with neighbors…Maybe she wants to be there, too.

“I’ll think about it,” she says finally and he grins like he’s already won. She holds up a finger, pressing it to his lips before he can try to kiss her. “Let me finish out the school year first. It’s only ‘til the end of May. After that, we’ll have plenty of time to move in and start decoratin’ over summer break.”

Nate just keeps grinning down at her, then surprises her when he scoops her up into his arms to spin her around.

“We have a house!” he cries out, his voice echoing through the empty neighborhood.

“We have a house!” Georgia shouts, laughing as he spins her.

He brings her down to plant one on her, dipping her when he does, and she can’t remember the last time she’s felt so happy after feeling so low.

-----

It takes a little less than a month before their house in Sanctuary Hills is move-in ready.

After a week of getting things unpacked and settled, Georgia tries to be neighborly. She makes a double batch of shortbread cookies with the few ingredients they have with the intent to go door-to-door and introduce herself, but it doesn’t pan out how she imagined it.

The only person who doesn’t turn her down is the man in the Hawthorne residence at the front of the neighborhood. To his credit, he was neighborly in his own way and offers to trade her the whole container for a box of Mentats that she only declines out of polite shock. Walking away, she can remember the taste of the orange ones from her college days on the tip of her tongue.

Coming home with a still-heavy container, sad and a little dejected, Georgia opens the door to her own home and walks past Nate on the couch and into the kitchen, setting the cookies on the counter.

“It’s either the new tax bracket or there’s somethin’ in the water makin’ everyone paranoid enough to turn down free food in a crisis,” she sighs, leaning against the counter and looking through their unopened mail. Bill, campaign soliciting, bill, bill, junk, paycheck, bill.

“No one wanted your cookies? More for me, then,” Nate shrugs as he watches the news.

After the news anchor reports on messages from the war front, the commercial breaks show fancy new Corvega Atomic V-8s, placement in a doomsday Vault, and domestic helper Miss Nanny robots. Then the anchor is back on screen and talks about the riots (some even inside Boston), the food shortages, and the chance that foreign spies could be anywhere. A rinse and repeat of instilled paranoia until the channel changes. It’s all so bleak that Georgia thinks she can’t blame her neighbors too much.

“Bring me one, would you?” Nate asks, gesturing over at her. “Those are my favorite.”

Georgia purses her lips at him over her shoulder while she opens the bills, “You have legs, mister. Use ‘em or lose ‘em.”

She turns back to the bills—surely the electric can’t be that high—and ignores his sigh from behind her. He walks over and pops open the tin, leaning against the counter.

“The boys invited me out to the bar this weekend,” he says through a mouthful of shortbread, then swallows. “You wanna come?”

Georgia’s eyes flit to him over the water bill. “I thought you wanted to go pick out a new bed frame this weekend. You made quite a few jokes about ‘breakin’ it in’, too.”

Nate almost appears to weigh the two options as he says, “Oh, yeah…”

“How about this,” he says, taking a bite out of another cookie, “bed frame in the morning, bar at night?”

“Maybe. I wanna take another crack at goin’ around the neighborhood,” she replies, thinking over her options. “Maybe these people just don’t like shortbread.”

Nate snorts, “Yeah, that’s it. Well, I’m going either way, so make up your mind by Friday.”

“Will do,” she nods absently, going back to calculating their bills in her head before she suddenly remembers the shortlist of chores she’d left before making her way around the neighborhood. “Hey, did you put the laundry on while I was out?”

Nate, covered in cookie crumbs, looks like a deer in headlights. She gives him a flat look.

“Sorry?” he tries, not looking the least bit guilty.

“Nevermind,” she mutters, and goes to do it herself.

-----

In July, Nate finally makes good on the promise of a dog (a sweet little Bichon Frise named Lady) and Georgia puts her resignation in. By December, regret hits her like a cast iron pan and a wooden spoon.

She sits on the couch, wrapped up in her robe as she reads her books from the library in the city. Despite all the fighting between them in the last few months, he still agrees to drive her into the city on Saturday mornings as long as he’s allowed to go out with his friends later that night. It gives her plenty of time to read, but it leaves her more than a little lonely, even with the dog, which is where the root of their problems lie.

In August, Nate told her that he was having to put in some overtime at the Corvega factory. Something about quotas not being met, workers threatening to strike, and not enough bodies on the floor. So he’s back on the line, but he assures her his uncle isn’t docking his pay. Georgia understands this and for the first few weeks she greets him at night with a late dinner and a warm shower. She even makes him breakfast to reheat in the mornings before he takes off and full lunches to share with the other men on the line. He called her his “perfect little housewife” and she ignored the twist in her stomach.

Georgia doesn’t think it would have gotten as bad between them if they had more than one car. As is, he drives it to work every day and it hadn’t taken long to get the house in order, so she was left to her own devices for the most part. She was a sociable creature, always had been, and being constrained to the house had done a number on her. The daily walks with Lady helped a little, but the dog wasn’t much of a conversational partner, and Georgia liked to talk. At one point she had even called up her sister-in-law, Margaret, and asked if she could babysit Henry, but she wasn’t willing to drive all the way out to Concord every time she needed to run an errand. So with neighbors that hated her and a husband that was rarely home, Georgia couldn’t help but feel lonely.

From the hallway, Nate stalks into the kitchen. His hair is wet from the shower and his clothes stick to him enough to show off every muscle underneath. Six months ago, she would’ve come up behind him and jumped his bones right there. As it stands, they haven’t had sex in four.

He opens the refrigerator and takes out last night’s lasagna before heading towards the side door to the carport. Georgia frowns.

“Where are you goin’? It’s nine o’clock at night,” she says and he stops at the door.

“Boys wanted to hang out,” he says quickly, “you know how it is.”

She dog-ears her book and puts it down, getting up from the couch. “Really? Why can’t you stay home tonight? Please?”

Nate’s sigh is agitated. She’s asked the wrong question.

“Why? So you can ignore me with your books then go to bed with another headache?” he asks her rhetorically. His words shock her nevertheless and she stands there, wondering what she did between now and this morning to make him bring that up.

“I’m sorry?” she says, less like an apology and more like a chance for him to take it back.

“Yeah, you should be,” he snaps, and goes for the door again. Georgia nearly flips the liquor cabinet by her side.

“Nate, are you serious? What the hell is wrong with you?” she demands, following him out to the carport.

“Just leave it alone, alright? Christ. I’ll be home before midnight.”

She doesn’t get a chance to say anything else before he’s inside the car and slamming the door shut. When he peels out of the driveway, Georgia refrains from screaming into the night and slams her own door on her way back inside.

-----

January 2077

“Fuck, ow.”

Georgia squints into the bathroom mirror, face pressed close enough to where she can pluck her eyebrows with surgical precision. A stray piece of wheat blonde hair that didn’t make it into the curlers piled atop her head falls in front of her eyes and she curses again, putting the tweezers down to fix the offending piece. As she does, her blush falls into the sink and cracks the pressed powder inside, staining the porcelain pink.

“Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, can I catch a break?” she mutters, salvaging what she can and closing the compact.

In the trashcan by the toilet are seven positive pregnancy tests she walked all the way to the pharmacy in Concord to get. She had tried to be discreet, but the girl behind the counter had congratulated her loudly enough to draw the attention of a few other customers, and hid a family planning pamphlet between the boxes. Georgia walked out of there sweating like a sinner in church.

She spies her wedding ring beside the hot water handle, and given that it’s pertinent she wears it tonight, she slips it onto her finger before it has a chance to fall down the drain. That was the last thing she needed.

Georgia is pregnant, and she doesn’t feel half as excited as she thought she would.

She and Nate had talked about having kids, of course. It was the main topic of their third date. He told her he’d always wanted a big family—a pretty wife, four kids minimum, and a protective yet lovable dog (they were still working on the dog, surprisingly. Lady ended up pissing on Nate’s side of the bed soon after they got her and was given to her mother-in-law a little while later).

Georgia wanted a family, too, of course. She had always imagined herself having kids someday, but she thought that reality was a little further away. Twenty-three still feels too early to become a mother even if most of her old college friends she hasn’t talked to in two years are starting families as well. It all feels so sudden, even if it’s exactly what she planned.

She files the thoughts away for later, and focuses on finishing up her face. Her makeup had gone untouched for a while after she stopped leaving the house as much, but she knew Nate liked when she dolled herself up. Hopefully it will help.

Once her face is powdered, her hair curled, and lips lined, she goes to their closet to pull out her best dress. Pink, of course, with flowery lace around the hem. She slips it on, careful of her curls, and debates on adding a blue belt just to be on theme before deciding against it. Besides, maybe the pink will help manifest a little girl. On the dresser is her eighth pregnancy test, sealed inside a plastic bag. She slips it into her pocket just as she hears a car pull into the driveway.

Things with Nate have been…better. Not great, but better. He’s stopped going out as much and she’s been less demanding of him. Their relationship was fractured, yes, but she knew in her heart that after today, it would be repaired and made to last.

She’s in the kitchen when he comes in, jumpsuit wrinkled and dirty. Georgia can smell the sweat on him from five feet away.

“Georgia, I’m—Oh, well look at you,” Nate says, giving her a long look from her head to her feet.

She smiles and gives him a little twirl and when he whistles at her, warmth blooms in her chest. He walks over and wraps her up in his arms. Georgia takes a deep breath, swallows the lump that forms in her throat, and hugs him back.

“What’s this all about?” he asks, looking down at her.

Her hand disappears into her pocket. When she pulls out the pregnancy test and sees Nate’s face, she almost wishes she could photograph it and save it forever.

She takes a deep breath, and her voice doesn’t even crack when she inhales the perfume on his collar. She puts on a smile.

“I’m pregnant.”

#fallout #fallout fic #fallout 4 #fo4 #fic: best laid plans #y'all i am so proud of this chapter & the effects it will have on the fic in later chapters pls give me feedback a;ldskjf

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princessofpatras · 10 months

Text

Lord, You Keep Me Crawling

Chapter Five: The Devil You Know — Part One (Auguste)

Cold stars stared down on Auguste from the great bowl of blue-black sky like a thousand uncaring eyes. He tore down the sidewalk, passing through intermittent pools of yellow streetlights and black night; never remaining long enough in either for his eyes to fully adjust before he burst through to the next. His breath was coming hard and fast. He could not put that house, and Laurent, and their uncle, and that whole mess of a dinner behind him quickly enough. He felt like such a fool. He shook his head roughly. He didn’t want to think about it. He couldn’t think about it; the betrayal stung like grief, and Auguste had no room in his heart for more grief.

A chill wind was rising, tugging at his clothes and hair with cold fingers until he shivered. A drink will warm me up, he thought, as well as clear my head. I need a drink.

With a mind to call Jord, he reached into the inner pocket of his blazer. His heart sank as his hand closed around nothing but the empty inside of the pocket. “Oh, fuck me,” he swore aloud. He’d left his damned phone at the dinner table.

Tugging at his hair, he spun in a helpless circle. Jord’s apartment was in the city, and Auguste was still in the suburbs, not yet a mile from the house that now belonged to the DiAkielos family. This area was sleepy at night. No one else was out on the sidewalks, and only a handful of cars had rolled by since he’d left the house. Even if he’d had any way to pay them, there weren’t any cabs crawling these streets at this hour, and without his phone, Auguste couldn’t even call an Uber.

He grabbed a stone from someone’s rock wall—a ragged thing about the size of a baseball—and hurled it into the blackness of the road with all his might. He let out a wordless scream of frustration, followed by a string of colorful curses that would have made the devil clutch his pearls, if Auguste had still believed in such fanciful things as heaven and hell.

A bang like a gunshot rang through the dark street. Auguste ducked, his heart leaping into his throat. His hand flew reflexively to the back of his waistband, reaching up under his blazer where his fingers curled around cool and reassuring metal. He strained his eyes against the dark but saw no movement. He listened, and heard only the blood drumming in his ears. Then he remembered the stone. Relief swept over him like a warm breeze. It had only been the stone, crashing into the pavement somewhere far ahead along the road.

Just like that, he came back to himself, remembering where and when he was. The sound of gunshots was unknown to uptown Arles suburbia. There was no enemy lurking in the shadowed street. A breath of embarrassed laughter rushed out of him. He uncurled his fingers and smoothed his blazer back down into place, reconsidering his current predicament.

There was nothing to be done for it, he realized with a kind of bleak acceptance. He couldn’t go back, so Auguste walked forward, toward the lights of the city.

He showed up at Jord’s some hours later; cold, sore, and thoroughly miserable. His friend didn’t need to look at him for more than two seconds with his wise gray eyes before he declared, “You look like you could use a drink.”

Auguste had never come so close to kissing another man on the lips in his life. Instead, he tried a weak smile. “You could say that.”

The bar Jord took him to was dirty and loud. Some trashy song Auguste didn’t recognize blared from unseen speakers, competing with the sounds of various sports game reruns on the television screens hanging above the bar, and boisterous waves of human laughter and conversation. Auguste’s shoes stuck to the floor with every step as he followed Jord to a booth at the back.

Auguste had always liked places like this. He had started going out to seedy bars and clubs back when he was still a teenager using a shitty fake ID to buy his booze. Jord had been by his side then too, as well as Orlant, with shitty fake IDs of their own.

Though, much of the appeal back then had come from the knowledge that he wasn’t supposed to be there, and that places like that would frighten and repulse his old-money parents. Now, all he cared about was the beer in his hand. And Jord, he reminded himself belatedly, I still care that Jord’s here.

He took a slow swig of his beer. It was a thick stout, dark and yeasty just the way he preferred. It wasn’t strong enough to get him truly drunk on its own, he knew—even as he worked on his second pint—and the hangover would be killer, but the buzz was pleasant and it calmed his mind. He took another long gulp, savoring the rich taste and feel of the beer on his tongue. Hangover-be-damned, he thought to himself, that’s a good beer.

“It just doesn’t make any sense,” he said around a thick swallow of beer. He had been recounting the events of the disastrous dinner to Jord. “He’s so good, you know. He’s really fucking good—like, prodigy good. And he’s throwing it all away. His whole future.”

“He’s just a kid,” Jord reminded him gently.

“I know. I know he is,” Auguste sighed. “I just always thought that his future was secure. That was one thing I never had to worry about. He had such a clear place in the world. And now … now what’s he going to do?”

“Anything he wants. Look, Gus,” Jord said and leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table. “If I can be blunt here for a second?”

Auguste bowed his head in a go ahead gesture.

Jord rubbed his chin idly, his watchful gray eyes on Auguste’s face. “I don’t think that Laurent quitting the violin is what’s making you so upset. I think this has more to do with him not telling you that he quit.”

“He should have told me,” Auguste agreed. “Something so important …” He ran his thumb through cool beads of condensation on the side of his glass. “We used to be so close.”

“Maybe he was worried you’d be disappointed in him. Shame makes people do all sorts of things that don’t make sense.”

Shame? Auguste shook his head. “No, not Laurent. He does what he wants and doesn’t give a shit what anyone else thinks of him.” I wish I had half his confidence, especially at his age.

Jord shrugged. “Maybe he was afraid you would be angry.”

“I am angry,” Auguste bellowed over the din, causing patrons’ heads around the bar to turn in his direction. He lowered his voice, “Why shouldn’t I be angry? He lied to me for years.”

Jord gave him a long, knowing look.

“That’s not the same,” Auguste jumped to defend himself. “What happened in Marlas—”

“You nearly died.”

The scar on his chest itched accusingly. “Well, clearly I didn’t.”

Jord did not relent. “You don’t think your family deserves to know? You don’t think Laurent deserved to know a year ago that he might have lost his brother?”

“I kept it from him to protect him,” Auguste growled. Heat simmered beneath his skin, boiling up into his face.

“Protect him from what? His chance to say goodbye?”

“I didn’t die!” Auguste didn’t realize he was shouting again until three burly men seated at the bar turned to stare. One was a giant of a man with lank black hair and a grisly beard. Judging by the crookedness of his nose, he’d seen more than his fair share of fistfights. His two companions were dwarfed by him, though they were not small men by any other measure. One had close-cropped red hair and red cheeks to match, and the other had a jaw so square it could be used as a straight-edge. Those two quickly went back to their drinks and conversation, but the huge man with the grisly black beard continued to stare.

“What?” Auguste snapped at him. The man slowly raised a thick black eyebrow, then treated him to a blood-curdling grin. Auguste turned back to his beer with a shiver and took another long swallow.

“But you could have died,” Jord said, expertly ignoring the man at the bar. “By all rights you should have. I saw the shot. I saw you fall. And all the blood. So much blood … Half an inch to the left and your life would have ended before the sound of the gunshot hit my ears. It’s a miracle you’re still here.” Jord’s voice had gone soft and tight. He was no longer looking at Auguste, but off toward the windows with a distant look in his eyes.

Auguste was struck with a wave of guilt. “I don’t believe in miracles,” he replied, suddenly feeling deflated. “It was you who dragged me out of there. But I don’t want to talk about Marlas.”

He visited that godforsaken place every night in his dreams, and sometimes even when he was awake. Those times were scarier. One moment he would be sipping coffee on his back porch, and the next he was caught in the ambush on that dusty street in Marlas, pinned between the enemy troops advancing from the east and a barrage of unexpected gunfire exploding out of the forest on the far side of the river, with no cover and no escape but south, through a village full of blind spots and potential hostiles. He was running blindly through a rain of a thousand tiny metal deaths, shouting to his men as they dropped in droves around him with twitches and violent jerks as clouds of blood and gore burst from their bodies like grotesque red fireworks. No hand of God reached out to shield them. Auguste had buried his faith that day, along with twenty-three of his brothers-in-arms.

Worst of all were the dreams of the alley behind the church in the village. Every time Auguste’s nightmares brought him to that alley, he was terrified that this time Jord wouldn’t find him, he wouldn’t get out, and he would be trapped there forever with blood dripping from his hands while those wide brown eyes stared into his soul accusingly. Perhaps I do believe in hell after all, he reflected with a shudder.

Laughter exploded from a table at the other end of the bar. Auguste expelled a ragged sigh, rubbing his palms roughly over his face. His cheeks were scratchy with stubble he’d have to shave off in the morning. “I just didn’t want Laurent to worry,” he said at last. “I wanted to save him some pain.”

“Gus,” Jord said, placing a warm hand atop his own on the table, “it’s his right to worry about you. That’s love.”

“Love is exhausting,” Auguste said wearily.

Jord breathed out a laugh. “It is. And it’s invigorating.”

Auguste smiled. “You and your contradictions.”

Jord’s tone was solemn. “I’m not the only one. You say you were protecting your brother. What about now? Why have you still not told him? He’s not in danger of losing you anymore.”

Auguste pulled his hand back, feeling his mood turn sour again. A small, vigilant part of his mind registered that the man at the bar was still watching him and Jord. The hair along Auguste’s arms stood up. His fingers twitched, itching for the cold grip at his lower back.

Jord didn’t seem to notice the men, or didn’t care. He caught Auguste’s eye again. “You know what my therapist says? He says that we don’t keep secrets to protect other people. We keep them to protect ourselves.”

“I don’t think I like this therapist of yours,” Auguste grumbled. “And I don’t want to talk about Laurent anymore either.” He chugged the last of his beer and flagged down a waitress for another.

“All right. What do you want to talk about?”

“How are things with Orlant?” Auguste asked.

Jord sighed deeply. “Oh, you know,” he said. The vinyl booth squeaked as he slouched back against it. “Great. Except he still doesn’t want to tell anyone that we’re dating.”

“Jesus, it’s been how long now?”

“Four years in November,” Jord said with a bitter smile.

“I thought the hiding was supposed to be over once he signed with a team.”

“That’s what he always promised, but now another year has passed and,” Jord spread his hands helplessly, “here we are.”

A waitress glided over to the table with Auguste’s beer. She was beautiful, with a dancer’s perfect posture and long blonde curls. She smiled at him when she set down the glass, but it was a shy smile. Auguste couldn’t say why he found that disappointing, or why he had expected her eyes to be ice blue, but when he saw that they were hazel and guileless, he lost interest. He offered her a tepid smile in return, which seemed to leave her almost as disappointed as he felt.

“I’m sorry, man,” he said to Jord when the girl had gone. “Do you want me to talk to him?”

“Nah,” Jord said, and smoothed his palms over the table. “I’ll talk to him. My therapist says I need to work on confronting the conflict in my life rather than avoiding it.”

“Speaking of which,” Jord said with forced brightness and pulled a small white card out of his wallet. “I have something for you.”

He held the card out between two fingers, and Auguste took it hesitantly. Silver foiled letters were printed onto the thick card.

Dr. Paschal

Adult, teen, and child psychiatrist, family therapist, marriage counselor.

A phone number, address, and email were printed below. Something sour twisted in Auguste’s gut as he stared at the little card.

“I’ve got all the therapy I need right here,” he grumbled, raising his glass of stout in mock toast.

“I think you would really benefit from what he has to offer,” Jord plowed on, heedless of Auguste’s darkening mood. “His advice is really solid. He could just be a friendly, professionally-trained ear to talk to, at the least. Someone who’s paid to not judge you. He could help you deal with Marlas, and your—”

“I don’t need a shrink, there’s nothing wrong with me,” Auguste cut him off sharply, his temper shortened by the drink. Then, seeing the hurt on his friend’s face, he backtracked. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“That there’s something wrong with me? No, it’s cool. It’s nothing I haven’t heard before. Can’t say I ever imagined hearing it from you, though.”

“Jord,” Auguste began. He searched for the right words to repair the damage he’d done. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Actually I don’t, Auguste. You haven’t been yourself lately. Maybe not for a long time.”

“What are you talking about? I’m the same as I’ve always been.”

Jord’s gray eyes were full of sorrow. Auguste was overcome with an absurd wave of guilt. He had no intention of using the card or going to therapy, but he slipped the card into his pocket anyway.

“We should go,” Jord said. “Early report at the base tomorrow, remember?”

Auguste hadn’t forgotten, but he wasn’t nearly as drunk as he needed to be before he could even consider going home. “Not yet. Come on, let’s stay a while longer.” Then, with a grin he wished was real, “Let’s do shots.” He waved the pretty waitress back over enthusiastically.

“No, no way,” Jord protested. “I can’t handle hard liquor like when we were young.”

In the end, Jord acquiesced and allowed Auguste to order a double round of tequila shots, but when he tried to order another round, Jord cut him off.

“No, Gus, that’s enough,” Jord said through his tequila-induced grimace. “Besides, I didn’t inherit deep pockets like you.”

“Come on, Jord,” Auguste pleaded, “I’ll pay you back. You know I’m good for it.”

Jord shook his head. “No, I’m calling it. It’s time to go.”

Auguste leaned back in the booth, the vinyl protesting with a squeak beneath him. “Go, then. I’m staying.”

“Oh, yeah?” Jord flashed him a mocking grin. “How are you going to pay without me? You don’t have your wallet. How are you going to get home? You can’t show up to base tomorrow hungover.”

“Fuck you, man,” Auguste grumbled. “You used to be fun.”

Anger flashed in Jord’s gray eyes like lightning behind a cloud. “Fuck you. You used to be my friend.” He scooted to the edge of the booth, as if to leave.

Auguste slid along with him, holding out a hand in a request for Jord to stay. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Something bumped hard into his elbow, jostling him in his seat. “Watch it,” Auguste barked at the big man who’d brushed by their table.

The man stopped and turned around slowly. It was the black-bearded man who’d stared at him from the bar. “You watch it, prettyboy,” he grumbled in a voice like gravel poured over a mountain.

“Excuse me?” Auguste felt his blood rising.

Jord grabbed his wrist. “Gus, don’t.”

The man lumbered closer, eyeing Jord’s hand on Auguste’s wrist. A vicious grin split his face. “I’m curious,” he growled. “When you two fairies fuck, which one of you is the man, and which one takes it like a woman?” His two companions moved up behind him, snickering.

Auguste shot up from the table. “The fuck did you say?”

“Auguste, please,” Jord hissed between his teeth.

The black-haired man’s laughter was cruel and mocking. “Why so angry, princess? You got something to prove? I bet your little boyfriend here is the man, out of the two of you. You act real tough, but I bet you squeal like a sow in heat when he fucks you into the mattress.”

Auguste sprang at the man before he had finished the last word. He had quick reflexes for such a large man, and caught Auguste’s fist in the air, clasping it in a meaty hand as big and hairy as a bear’s paw. Auguste pushed against the iron grip, and shoved at the man’s other shoulder with his free hand. They struggled, grappling with each other’s arms. The burly man’s arms were like corded stone beneath the rough sleeves of his jacket.

Jord was tugging on his sleeve and shouting at him to stop. Auguste ignored him, grit his teeth, and threw his whole body weight into the struggle, feeling the strain in every burning muscle, but his feet were starting to slip backward. The other man was stronger than him. He wasn’t going to win a battle of brute force.

To drive the point home, the burly man shoved hard, seeming to gain more strength out of nowhere, and sent Auguste reeling backward. He slammed into a table, the edge of it bruising his tailbone instantly as dishes clattered and a glass shattered to the floor.

A woman who was seated at the table shrieked, and her companion fell backwards out of his chair. Other voices added to the cacophony; wordless cries of shock and excitement, and others yelling encouragements or dissuasions.

“Fuck him up, Govart!” the red-haired, red-faced man shouted as Auguste pulled himself to his feet.

The black-haired man—Govart—took a menacing step forward, but Auguste ducked up under his guard, swinging his fist. His knuckles struck home, connecting with Govart’s mangled nose with a satisfying crunch.

Govart’s head reeled back, and he stumbled a few steps backward, clutching his nose. Thick blood poured out between his fingers.

The bartender was shouting something Auguste didn’t catch, likely calling for security.

Auguste’s victory didn’t last long. His next swing was clumsy, which he had his three beers and two tequila shots to thank for—plus the wine at dinner, and Govart dodged it easily.

The blow that Govart landed on his left eye nearly took his head off his shoulders. Auguste went sprawling to the floor, ears ringing. The bar was spinning around him. He grasped at the sticky wooden floor for support, but it didn’t stop, only kept on spinning. His stomach lurched dangerously.

Pain burst along his side as a boot slammed into his ribs. He barely had time to register the first kick before another followed, and another, each more brutal than the last. He curled into a ball in a primal attempt to protect himself.

The ringing was fading from his ears, and he heard Jord screaming, “Stop!” Then Jord was down on the floor in front of him, falling on his ass with a thud that Auguste felt through the floor.

Auguste didn’t remember losing consciousness, but when he came to he was on his feet, being herded out the door by the bar security guard. He glanced around frantically for Jord, and was relieved to find him shuffling along behind him, seemingly unhurt.

Govart and his buddies were nowhere to be seen. Hopefully they’d already been thrown out, or left the bar on their own.

Outside the bar, the blue night rushed up to meet him, enveloping him in its cool embrace. Auguste took in a deep breath, allowing it to refresh him.

Jord brushed past his shoulder, storming down the sidewalk in a silent fury.

“Jord,” Auguste slurred, jogging to catch up to his friend, “I’m sorry.”

“Your goddamned temper is going to get one or both of us killed one of these days,” Jord snapped, but he slowed down to allow Auguste to fall into step beside him.

“That guy was an asshole,” Auguste protested.

“Yes,” Jord agreed, “a very big, very strong, very violent asshole. Not someone to pick a fistfight with.”

They turned a corner down a quiet alleyway. The hairs on the back of Auguste’s neck stood up, but Jord seemed confident in his navigation, and Auguste trusted his friend’s knowledge of the city above his own, so he followed without complaint.

“I could have beaten him if I was sober,” Auguste said.

Jord slowed and leveled him with a significant look. “But you weren’t sober.”

Anger clawed up Auguste’s spine. “You’re the one who suggested drinks.”

“A drink. I suggested a drink, in the singular” Jord retorted. “And how the hell are you planning to explain that black eye to—”

“Did you hear that?” Auguste cut him off, spinning around. He thought he’d heard a noise behind them, but when he squinted into the moonlit alley, he saw nothing but shadows. They listened in tense silence. Distant laughter rolled down the street they’d come from like thunder, and music was playing faintly from somewhere far off to the right—the bass thumping like the city’s heartbeat. “I thought …”

“It’s nothing,” Jord decided. “Let’s go. I’m tired.”

They hadn’t taken two more steps before Auguste heard it again. It was unmistakable. Footsteps echoing behind them, moving just slightly out of pace with their own. He whirled around again, without warning, and this time, he saw the shadows move.

“Who’s there?” he called out. “Show yourself, coward!”

“There’s no one there, Auguste,” Jord said with a hand on his elbow.

“No, I heard footsteps,” he insisted. Adrenaline was hammering in his veins, making it hard to hear anything now over his own heartbeat. Fuck it, he thought, and pulled his gun from the back of his waistband.

“Show yourself, or I start shooting,” he bellowed, creeping toward the shadow with his gun trained on the shifting darkness.

“What the fuck?” Jord’s voice was shrill. “You had a gun on you this whole time? Why the hell do you have a gun? Put it away!”

Auguste heard another sound, closer now, like gravel shifting beneath a shoe. He stepped closer to the shadow, not even daring to breathe, his finger hovering over the trigger.

An ambulance raced down the street at the mouth of the alley, temporarily flooding it with light. Two more guns materialized out of the darkness to match his own, the barrels reflecting the flashes of red and blue emergency light, and both pointed directly at Auguste’s face.

“Freeze,” Square-jaw shouted, as the redhead yelled, “Drop the weapon!”

The world slowed to a crawl as the redhead pulled out a badge, and Square-jaw pulled a pair of shiny silver handcuffs out of his pocket. Moonlight glinted coldly off the metal.

Govart emerged from the shadow last, and stepped up behind his two gun-brandishing cop friends, smirking. “Oops.” Blood dripped down from his crushed nose into his mouth, painting his teeth red.

The ride to the jail in the back of the police car was a blur. He’d lost Jord somewhere along in the process. Which was good, he supposed, because if Jord wasn’t here, it meant he hadn’t been arrested.

Auguste stood in front of the wall-mounted rotary phone, where an officer had told him he could make his one allotted phone call. By now, his eye was beginning to swell and his head throbbed with every slight movement. The handcuffs had left angry red rings around his wrists that burned. Auguste picked up the grimey black receiver, and hesitated.

He almost called Jord, then stopped himself. While he didn’t think Jord was the kind of man to let his best friend rot in jail just because he was angry with him, Augsute knew he couldn’t afford the bail. Orlant could, but probably wouldn’t answer the phone, and there was no way Auguste was going to call his uncle. He floundered for a moment, racking his brain for another friend with deep pockets he could call, until the answer came to him like a ray of sunlight in the dark, and he dialed the number. The phone rang three times, and Auguste began to worry that he wouldn’t pick up.

“Hello?” His godfather’s voice came through at last, clear and steady, untouched by sleep. Auguste vaguely wondered what he was doing up at this hour.

“Berenger,” he breathed out with palpable relief, “thank God. It’s Auguste. I, uh, have a small favor to ask.”

Within the hour, Auguste was ushered through the release process and handed over to a very disappointed-looking Berenger.

“What were you thinking?” Berenger chastised from the driver’s seat as he drove them down the streets of Arles. The night grew darker as they left the city behind and drove farther into the suburbs. “This kind of behavior will get you kicked out of the military, Auguste. I imagine you’re in for a world of trouble as it is.”

Auguste ground his teeth and tried not to pout like a child. In truth, he hadn’t been thinking at all. He had been specifically trying not to think, but he couldn’t say that to Berenger.

The song playing on the radio caught his attention. He cranked up the volume to its maximum.

“Rocket maaan,” he belted along with Elton John, “burning out his fuse up here alone!” He drummed on the dashboard, grinning at Berenger and encouraging him to join in. “And I think it's gonna be a long, long time, ‘til touchdown brings me 'round again to find, I'm not the man they think I am at home, oh! No, no, no! I'm a—”

Berenger reached across the steering wheel and hit the button that controlled the radio, killing the song instantly. Auguste blew out a long breath through puffed cheeks. “Okay,” he muttered.

After that, they rode in silence for a while. Berenger had always possessed a grim, stony sort of face, though handsome in its own way, but it was made grimmer now by the disappointment etched into the lines on his forehead and beside his mouth. Shadows hung beneath his eyes. He looked a decade older than when Auguste had last seen him, two years ago.

“How many drinks have you had tonight?” he finally asked, keeping his eyes firmly on the road.

Auguste scratched at the base of his neck. “A few,” he mumbled defensively.

Berenger’s sigh was deep and weary. “I worry about you, Auguste. You know what I see here? I see you walking in your father’s footsteps, and not down a good path. I loved your father like a brother, and there was plenty to love about him, but he wasn’t perfect. He made mistakes. Mistakes that hurt the people who loved him. I don’t want to see you making the same kind of mistakes.”

Auguste’s head was suddenly full of his father’s roaring voice. His muscles twitched—his body trying to cower from remembered fists. The smell of alcohol on his own breath turned his stomach. He ground his molars together, his jaw tight as a steel trap. “I’m nothing like my father.”

“Aleron raised you to fill his shoes, Auguste,” Berenger said, matter-of-fact, but not unkindly. “He created you in his image. That doesn’t mean you have to pray to him every night, or follow the path he laid out for you. You are your own man. Make your own mistakes; don’t repeat your father’s.”

Auguste had nothing to say to that. He stared out the passenger side window, watching the streetlights zip by overhead like falling stars. It was beautiful, and dizzying—or maybe that was the alcohol. Sleep tugged at his consciousness like a siren, pulling him slowly and sweetly under the waves.

He had almost forgotten Berenger was there when he spoke again, shaking Auguste free from the siren’s grip. “Jord told me you walked straight to his apartment from a dinner party.”

“Jord talked to you? When?”

“He called me just before you did,” Berenger said. “Why did you have a gun on you?”

Auguste shrugged, feeling embarrassed about it now. “Never walk into enemy territory unarmed.”

“Enemy territory?” Berenger repeated softly. “The war is over, son. You’re home now.”

As if to prove his point, Auguste’s parents’ house rolled up into view, the blue paint ghostly gray in the moonlight. My house now, he reminded himself. But he was pretty sure he would always think of it as his parents’ house, regardless of the name on the deed.

The car ambled to a stop in the driveway. Berenger had a pensive look on his face and seemed as though he were going to say something more, so Auguste waited. Drumming his fingers lightly on the steering wheel, Berenger asked, “How’s Laurent doing?”

“Oh, he’s good,” Auguste said, “yeah. I mean, I just found out that he quit the violin years ago, but yeah, he’s, uh … No, he’s all right, I think.”

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.” Berenger studied the house through the windshield, a frown creasing his forehead. “It must be lonely, just him and your uncle in that big house. Not an ideal situation for a young boy. I’m sure he’s thrilled to have you back.”

Don’t ever leave me again, Laurent had whispered into their hug at the airport. But he felt colder than the bright little brother Auguste remembered; a distant star, his light only a thin memory by the time it reached earth and human eyes. And there had been that look he’d exchanged with their uncle the night of Auguste’s return. It had been only a little glance, but Auguste had felt the weight of it like a freight train slamming into his chest.

“I don’t know,” he said, staring at his hands in his lap. The knuckles on his right hand were split and bleeding. He hadn’t noticed that until now. “Uncle and Laurent have their own … whole thing. I’m an intruder in my own house.”

Berenger sighed again. This time, it sounded pained. “Nonsense. Auguste, look at me.”

Auguste did. Berenger’s expression was solemn, his brown eyes holding Auguste’s gaze with intensity. “I work in journalism,” he went on. “It’s my job to see the truth behind the smoke screens. And if there’s one truth I’m certain of above all others in this world, it’s that your brother loves you.”

“Sure,” Auguste said with a sad smile, “but loving someone and wanting them around aren’t always the same thing.” His gaze fell back down to his bloody knuckles. “I make him nervous.”

The purring of the engine was the only response. Berenger seemed to have run out of life-lessons and reassurances, or maybe he was cooking up a big one. Auguste decided to change the subject before he had the chance.

“Speaking of Laurent,” he said lightly, “can you make it on Saturday?”

“Saturday?”

“The thirtieth. Laurent’s birthday.”

“I remember.”

“He’s having a party. Well, really, our uncle is having a party and using Laurent’s birthday as an excuse.” At the mention of his uncle, Berenger’s frown deepened to a scowl. “Did you not get an invitation?” Auguste asked.

“I didn’t.”

“Huh. That’s weird. Well, consider this your formal invitation,” Auguste said with a grin. “Brunch is at ten, can you make it?”

“Auguste,” Berenger said slowly, “I don’t know if that would be appropriate.”

“What? No, I’m sure your invitation just got lost in the mail or something. Come on, Berry,” he pleaded, “we haven’t seen you in forever. I miss you, and so does Laurent. He would be thrilled if you came to his party.”

Berenger considered in silence, frowning out at the house. He looked back over at Auguste, something in his face softening, and he sighed. “I suppose I could make time to stop by.”

“Fantastic,” Auguste grinned. “Laurent will be so happy to see you.”

“All right, off you go. Be sure to ice that shiner,” he advised.

“Yeah, I will,” Auguste said as he climbed out of the car. “Thanks again, Berry. I’ll pay you back in full.”

“No, really. Don’t worry about it.” He cut off Auguste’s protest with a wave of his hand. “I’m serious, I won’t accept repayment. This is the least I can do for you and your brother. Let me do this one good thing.”

Auguste was going to protest, but the earnestness in Berenger’s face and tone of voice made him drop it and accept the kindness. “Thank you,” he repeated, more solemnly this time.

Berenger nodded. Auguste closed the car door and started walking away toward the house.

“And stay out of trouble!” Berenger called out his window when Auguste had the handle of the front door in his grip, “Next time I will ask for repayment! With interest!”

Auguste laughed and waved him off. He stood on the front step and watched Berenger’s silver car disappear down the road, leaving him alone in the pre-dawn hush, with only the pale moon and fading stars for company, and the promise of a sunrise on the horizon.

He struggled with the front door until he remembered that it was a push and not a pull, and fell stumbling forward into his house, laughing. The darkness inside the house reminded him to be quiet, so he swallowed his laughter and tried not to slam the door as he closed it. Only after did it occur to him that he had no key on him, but luckily the door had been unlocked.

He saw soft light in the living room, a lamp turned low. A shadow shaped like his uncle sat on the couch in the near-dark, blocking the lamp from view.

“Uncle—”

“Shhh,” the shadow shaped like his uncle shushed. It sounded like his uncle too.

Auguste teetered into the living room and threw himself over the back of the other couch with a sigh. When he rolled over to look at his uncle again, he was no longer blocking the lamp from this angle. Auguste was able to see him where the light fell on one side of his pale face, cutting his profile as sharp as a knife. His eyes traveled down, pulled by a spill of pale hair in his uncle’s lap. Laurent was curled on the couch, using their uncle’s thighs as a pillow. His face was smooth and peaceful with sleep, and his breaths were deep and slow.

“He wanted to wait up for you,” his uncle whispered. He stroked his fingers through Laurent’s hair like he was petting a cat.

“Well, I’m—”

“Shh!” Uncle snapped.

“I’m here now,” Auguste whispered.

“Better that we don’t wake him,” his uncle said softly. “He sleeps little enough these days. You’ve been drinking.”

“I went out with Jord.”

His uncle hummed without expression. Auguste wished he could tell what the man was thinking. Laurent was always better at reading people, especially reading their uncle. The two of them had some sort of connection that Auguste didn’t understand. It seemed even stronger now, like it had grown in his absence. He had been jealous when he first noticed, but now, watching Laurent sleep in his uncle’s lap, he realized he’d been selfish.

“Thank you,” Auguste said solemnly, “for always being there for him. For protecting him when I wasn’t around.”

His uncle tucked a wisp of Laurent’s hair behind his ear with a slow trail of his fingers. “I only did what anyone would do for someone they love,” he murmured.

“No,” Auguste insisted. “You did what I should have done. You’re a far better man than me.” Maybe he was drunker than he’d realized. The warmth of the alcohol in his blood had loosened his tongue, making it easier to say things he had never put to words before. “When Dad died, I thought … Part of me was relieved,” he said with a laugh that was half a sob. “I thought, ‘there’s one less thing to protect him from’. That’s horrible, I know. But I was only thinking about … I should have stayed with him a little longer. He was only a kid … He’s lost so much. I’m glad he never lost you.”

Laurent’s long golden eyelashes fluttered. Auguste wondered what the boy was dreaming about. He hoped it was a pleasant dream.

“Here,” Auguste mumbled as he staggered to his feet, fighting against the way the room swayed around him, “I’ll take him upstairs.”

Uncle smiled. “You just worry about getting yourself safely up the stairs. I will take Laurent to bed.” He placed a proprietary hand on the crown of Laurent’s head.

Auguste was relieved. The stairs did seem daunting enough on their own in his current state, without having to worry about dropping his brother. “Thank you, Uncle. Good night,” he said, and began stumbling up step-by-step.

In his room, he belly-flopped onto his bed with a sigh. As an afterthought, he pulled the card Jord had given him out of his pocket and tossed it onto his nightstand. His eyes closed heavily, and he careened toward a deep and dreamless sleep.

Auguste woke to violent explosions of pain in his head. It took him several seconds of agony to realize that the source of the pain was a sound—and the sound was coming from his alarm. Groaning, he squeezed the lock button on his phone to snooze it. A knife of white light streamed through the seam where his curtains met in the middle, stabbing through his eyes directly into his brain. He wrapped his pillow around his head to shield his eyes and snoozed his alarm again.

The third time his alarm went off, he peeked an eye open to check the time. 6:18 a.m. He had to report to the base today at 0700 hours sharp. If he had any hope of making it on time and not looking (and smelling) as thoroughly hungover as he was, he had to get up now. When he dragged himself to his feet, the room lurched and swayed around him like a ship caught in a storm.

I need a drink, he thought foggily. A little hair-of-the-dog should steady me.

He rummaged through his desk. At the back of the lower right drawer was a bottle of rum he had hidden there before leaving for active duty. He unscrewed the cap and took a long swig. The burn was satisfying and seemed to lessen his headache immediately—though that was probably just the placebo effect, but Auguste didn’t question it. If it worked, it worked. He replaced the cap, then hesitated. He removed it again and took another gulp of rum, just to be sure he drank enough to rid himself of his hangover.

Drinking before breakfast wasn’t a habit Auguste was proud of. Though, it did provide him with some insights. For one, he finally understood why his father used to pour whiskey in his coffee in the mornings.

Auguste studied his reflection in the mirror as he brushed his teeth. His left eye was throbbing and swollen almost fully shut, the skin around it puffy and purple.

“Just like old times, eh, Dad?” he asked the mirror with a bitter smirk.

He spit and rinsed his mouth and vowed to never get so bad as to drink his daily coffee with whiskey. A little rum before breakfast once in a while was completely different. He needed it today.

He scrubbed the bar stink off himself in the shower until his skin was pink and stinging. Then he dressed and rushed out the door without a word to his uncle or Laurent who were sitting at the kitchen table, refusing even to turn around when Laurent called out to him so that his brother wouldn’t see his bruised face. That’s a problem for later, Auguste told himself in the solitude of the garage, and climbed onto his motorcycle.

#last one for now!#check out the sneak peek of chapter 6 if you haven’t already #lykmc #captive prince #my writing #auguste of vere #capri fanfic #captive prince fanfic #lamen

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